Despotism in America : an inquiry into the nature, results, and legal basis of the slave-holding system in the United States.

DESPOTISM IN AMERICA :

AN INQUIRY

INTO

THE NATURE, EESULTS, AND LEGAL BASIS

OP THH

SLAVE-HOLDING SYSTEM

IN THE UNITED STATES.

BY

RICHARD HILDRETH,

Atrtzov. or thb histobt 07 thb xmirsn statxs, thbokt or
poLiTios, ymm slats, bto.

BOSTON:

PUBLISHFJ) BY JOES P. JEWETT AND COMPANY.
CLEVELAND, OHIO:
JEWETT, PROCTOR & WORTHINGTON.

NSW YORK: SHELDON, LAMPORT & BLAKMAlf.
1854.

Knterwl, sccordinj; to Art of Copgreti, In tho year 1R54, by

JOItX P. JtWETT AUn COMPJISV,

Is th« Clark's Office of the DUtriet Court of tlio Diitiict of MiHuchUMtta.

(TKIBOTTrCC IT TUB

" The impression which has gone abroad of the weakness
of the South, as connected with the slave-question, exposes
us to such constant attacks, has done us so much injury,
and is calculated to produce such infinite mischiefs, that I
embrace the occasion presented by the remarks of the gen-
tleman from Massachusetts, to declare that we are ready to
meet the gtcestion promptly atfd fearlessly. It is one from
which Lie are not disposed to shrink, in whatevee fobm, or

TTNDEK WHATEVER CIBCITMSTANCES IT MAY BE PRESSBD UPON

US. We are ready to make up the issue as to the influence
of slavery on individtial and national character— ^n the
prosperity and greatness eitlier of the United States, or
particular States. Sir, when arraigned at the bar of pub-
lic opinion, on this charge of slavery, we can stand up with
conscious rectitude, plead not guilty, and put ourselves
upon God and our country." — Speech of Robert Y.
Haynb, of South Carolina, in reply to Mr. Webster, deliv-
ered in the Senate of the United States, Jan. 21, 1830.

CONTENTS.

INTBODUCTION 6

CHAPTER FIRST.

THE BBLATIOH OF HASTES AVb 8IJLTE.

Sect. I. — Origin of Slavery 35

Sect. II.--General idea of a Slare-bolding CSomnuiiiitf . . . . S6

Sect. III. — Empire claimed by the American Slave MMtH' . . . 8$

Sect. IV.^-Meana of enforcing the Matter's Empire 41

S«CT. V .•— Methods of resistance on the part of the Slaves ... 48
Sect. YL — The treatment of American Slaves considered as uni"

mals 55

Sect. VII. — The treatment of Araeriean Slaves considered as men 62
Sect. VIII. — Wealth and luxury of the Masters, as it affects the

condition of Slaves 74

Sect. IX. — Improvement in physical condition, as it affects the

condition of servitude 77

CHAPTER SECOND.

POtlTIOAt. SSSULTS OF THE 0tAVE-HOU>IirO BTSTXIC.

Sect. I— General view of the subject 83

Sect. II. — Slavery as it affects the security of the privileged class 86
Sect. in. — Slavery as it affects the liberty of the privileged class 92

Sect. IV. — Slavery in its influence upon Equality 95

Sect. V. — Education in the Slave-holdine States 104

Sect. VI— Military strength of the Slave-holding States .... 107

CHAPTER THIRD.

BCOKOXIOAi; BB8CI.TS Of THE BLATE-BOU>IKO STSVBK.

Sect. I.— Effect of Slavery upon the Sources of Wealth . . . .111
Sect. II. — Slaveir as it affects the amount of Capital required for

industrious nnaertakings 119

Sect. III. — Agri<mltare in the Slave-holding States 12S

Vi C0NTENV8.
Sbct. IV.—Manafactures and Commerce in the Slave=boldlng

States 182

Sect. V.-~In8tability and uncertainty of valuea in tha Slave-hold-

iag States • • • 134

Sect. VI.— Comparative Progress and Prosperity of the Free and
' of the Slave-holding States o 138

CHAPTER FOURTH.

PKBS0HA.1. BSSULTS OF THJS BUIVB-HOLBINO-BTSTBM.

Sect. I. — Personal effects of Slavery npon the privile^d class . 143
Sect. II.— Personal effects of Slaveir npon the unprivileged class 157
Sect. HI. — Points of diversity in the wrsonal cnaracter of the

privileged and unprivileged class ..... • 164

CHAPTER FIFTH.

UEOAL BA8X8 OT IHB SIULYE-HOtDIHO 8T8TXU.

S»CT. I. — Preliminary observations IM

SiCCT. U.— Slavery as * Colonial Institution 177

Sx<rr. III.— Slavery in the States and under the Federal Coostim^

tion 819

S«CT. rV.— The FogitiTe Act of 1850 S53

APPENDIX 804

INTRODUCTION.

It has been said, and is often repeated, that the
United States of America are trying a great social ex-
periment, upon the result of which hangs the future
fate not of America only, but to a certain extent, of
all mankind.

The consequences likely to flow from the success or
failure of this experiment, are doubtless exaggerated ;
for those universal laws which regulate the feelings
and the actions of men, will ultimately produce their
necessary effects, in spite of narrow systems of policy
and morals, founded upon the success or failure of
■liny single experiment.

But whatever we may think of its probable conse-
quences, however fancy may magnify, or reason may
diminish riiem, the experiment itself is a great one.
It is in fact far more complicated and more critical, and
therefore greater and more interesting, thaa it is com-
monly represented.

The American experiment is usually described, as
purely an experiment of democracy ; an attempt to
establish a perfect equality of political rights ; an es-
say towards tlie equal distribution among all the
members of the community, of freedon", property,
knowledge, social advantages, and those other good
things which make up the mass of human happiness.
And this experiment — as we are assured by every
writer, native, or foreign, who has touched upon the
subject, owing to the peculiar circumstances of the
country, is cairried on to the greatest possible advam-

8.

BESl-OTISM

tago, noA being compelled to encounter a multitude of
hostile influences, by which such an undertaking, any
where else, would l>e most vigorously opposed.

This is not a true representation of the case. If in
certain parts of the American Union, the experiment
of Democracy be steadily and quietly pursued, and
with an influence and a feeling in its favor which have
at length become predominant, in certain other parts of
the country it is quite overshadowed, and is reduced
to creep pale and sickly on the ground, by another ex-
periment, less talked about, less celebrated, but not
the less real or important, to wit, the experiment of
Despotism.

The Northern States of the Union are unquestion-
able Democracies, and every day they are verging
nearer and nearer towards the simple idea and theo-
retic perfection of that form of government. The
Southern States of the Union, though certain demo-
cmtic principles are to be found in their constitutions
and their laws, are in no modern sense of the word
entitled to the appellation of Democracies : They are
Aristocracies; and aristocracies of the sternest and
most odious kind. Property, and all the rights, ad-
vantages and enjoyments which the laws bestow, are
limited to certain families and their descendants. Cer-
tain other families and their offspring, to the latest
generation, are not only deprived of edl political priv-
ileges and social advantages, but they are the hered-
itary subjects, servants, bondsmen of the privileged
class. Every man of the privileged order who is pos-
sessed of any property at all, is apt to own at least
one slave ; if he is rich, ^e may own a thousand ; but
whether one or a thousand, of those he does own, the
laws create him with but a single slight, and in fact
merely nominal excepti'Mi, the absolute master, lord
and despot. In their relation towards each other, the
members of the privileged class are nominally equal ;
and in that aspect, it may happen that the lord of a
plantation and five himdred slaves, shall be a g^t
stickler for liberty and equality. But the liberty and

9

equality for which he contends, is wholly confined to
the privileged order; and the total subjection and
«temal servitude of the unprivileged class is consid-
ered a matter of course, a first principle, a fixed and
established ordinance, as inevitable and as incapabk
of alteration, as the laws of nattire.

It is evident then, how complicated is the Amehcan
experiment. If the democratical part of it, has hith-
erto been pursued in silence and quiet, aM with such
apparent success that the admirers of Democracy
have been ready to cry out that the problem is already
solved ] — that quiet and silence have been merely ac-
cidentsd ; that success has been only a progress which
^as comparatively speaking, but slightly opposed;
and it is but now that Democracy and Despotism face
to face, like Gabriel and the Arch-enemy, make r^dy
ioi a desperate and dreadful struggle. The prepara-
tion, the courage, the arms, the loftiness of soul were
not on the part of the " angelic sqimdron" sdone :-—

Oa t' otitse side, Satfta alarm'4
GoUecting all his migiu, dilated stood
Like Tenerifie, or Atlas, unremoved.
His stature readied the sky, and on his crest
Sat homxr plum' d; nor wanted in his grasp
What $eem*d both spear and shield. —

The struggle that impends is of a nature to shake
the country to the centre, and to end, if we believe
the prophecies of our southern friends, in civil com-
motions, infuriated hostilities, and savage war.

So it may be. The event is in their power. Let
them be wise in time. The balimce of justice is
stretched across the sky,^ — and is it not their scale that
kicks the beam ? Let tb^ look up and read their lot
in ]&at celestial sign, and know themselves, how light,
how weak, if they resist. Even the arch-fiend caSred
not to struggle against inevitable fate, and fled a strife
in which he could but suffer.

That heterogeneous mixture of aristocracies and

10

DESPOTISM

democracies, which makes up the American Union ;
that strange compound of liberty and despotism, which
pervades tlie laws of so many of the States, and lurks
demurely, in the federal constitution ; such hostile and
repulsive elements having been so long quietly in covi-
tact without producing an explosion, it has theace
been argued, and believed, that they might always re-
main so. But those who reason thus, have not well
considered the history of the American States, nor the
kind of progress which Democracy has hitherto made.

The dispute which severed the colonies from Great
Britain, pive rise to constitutions in the northern
States of the confederacy, which acknowledged to a
greater or less de^ee, the leading principles of liberty
and equality ; prmciples which before hardly had an
existence, except in the speculations of a few political
theorists. In no part of the country, were the funda-
mental theorems of this modem system of policy, more
generally received or more warmly maintained, than
in the New England States, where the equal distribu-
ti<m of property seemed to open the way for the easy
introduction of a purely democratical system.

But property is not the only source of political pow-
er. Prom the earliest settlement of those States, the
Clergy had always exercised a predominant influence.
They formed a distinct order, acting together with
decision and promptitude, and monopolizing all the
learning and no small share of the active talent of the
community. The mass of the people, though all could
read,-— an inestimable accomplishment, and under fa-
vorable circumstances, capable in itself of becoming
the foundation of the most liberal knowledge, — were
yet extremely ignorant ; for they had no book but the
bible, and for the most part they relied upon their re-
ligious teachers widi a submissive and superstitious
dependance, for such expositions of its contents as they
saw fit to give. In this state of the case, the power
which the clergy exercised was very great. It was
however for the most part a moral power, a power not
over the bodies, but over the minds of men, 9nd of

IN AMERICA-

li

course, it was least feit ly those who yielded to it the
most implicit submission. Some harsh acts of j>ers^
cution and punishment were occasionally dealt out to
such insubordinate persons as were bold enough to
think for themselves, or to question the infallible and
divine authority of the " standing order." But in
general, that veneration which the " ministers" claim-
ed, was spontaneously yielded, and the power thus
conferred was judiciously fortified by being shared
with such of the laymen as moyt excelled in shrewd-
ness; ambition, and spiritual gifts.

The Revolution, and those questions of constitu-
tional law to which it gave rise, and more yet, those
extensive and iniquitous fluctuations of property which
the paper money system produced, raised into conse-
quence another body of men, superior to the clergy in
active talent ; almost their equals in learning ; and if
they were not regarded widi the same affectionate
awe, yet both feared and respected by the people.
These were the Lawyers.

This new order did not hazard its influence nor
waste its strength in a struggle for power, with the
clergy. On the contrary, the clergy and the lawyers
soon formed an intimate union ; and thougn these lat-
ter were sometimes a little wanting in respect for the
theological dogmas, and the austere morality of their
allies, these deficiencies of faith and practice were
more than made up for, by the zeal and subtlety
with which they defended the If, gal privileges of the
clergy, and labored to uphold their influence and au-
thority.

This double hierarchy of law and divinity, long
maintained a predominating influence over the yeo-
manry of New England. Bred up on their farms in
the simplest way, and with a deep reverence for reli-
gion and the law, a reverence easily and naturally
transferred to the clergy and the lawyers ; depending
upon the pulpit for their weekly supply of knowledge
and opinions, or if they read a newspaper, — and
American newspapers in those times were but small

12

DESPOTtSM

alfeirs— -choosing such an one as the lainister recom-
mended ; the Legislature filled with lawyers, whose
superior information, eloquence and adroitness, put
every thing in their power ; the judges, secure in the
tenure of their office, and the profound respect with
which it was regarded, contributing by their decisions,
to uphold a system of which they formed a part :
thus beset, hemmed in, controlled and over-awed, all
the we£iker spirits and more submissive tempers, that
is to say, the mass of the community, cowered and
submitted to a power, so boldly claimed, so vigorously
enforced, and exercised on the part of those who held
it, with a serious and sincere belief that superior
knowledge, virtue and capacity justly entitled them
to pr&-eminent authority.

But notwithstanding this moral oligarchy to which
New England was subjected, the spirit of democracy
had nestled in the bosoms of her people ; and cherished
by degrees into energy and strength, it presently be-
gan to plume its wings, and to make ready for assert-
ingits just dominion.

The history of the contest in New "Ekigland, be-
tween Democracy on the one hand, and the priestly
and legal alliance on the other, has never vet been
written. It is not adorned with any of those palpable
acts, those scenes of devastation and slaughter, which
have hitherto formed the chief topics of historic nar-
ration ; and though a most violent and bitter struggle,
so little has it attracted the attention of political wri-
ters, that the progress of American Democracy, thus
far, has been generally described as quiet, silent and
almost unresisted.

To one, who from t .*e the array of the combatants,
had divined the probable termination of the conflict,
the speedy discomfiture of the democratical party
would have appeared inevitable. Behind the legal
and clerical champions who proudly led the van of the
opposing forces, there followed a goodly host, including
by fki the most respectable, and apparently the most
worthy portions of society. The wealthy, almxMt to

m AMERICA.

13

a man, enlisted in behalf of the established order of -
things, which having made them rich , in their estima-
tion, could not but be good. Besides; their wealth
enabled them to purchase by gifts to pious uses, and
without any special personal merit, high seats in the
synagogue ; and sufficed to enrol them in the list of
"gentlemen," with whom the ministers and the lawyers
were accustomed to share their authority. Next fol-
lowed the great mass of the religiously disposed : for
it requires an unusual degree of discernment and de-
cision, to escape from the influences of education and
habit, and to distinguish between a reverence for reli-
gion, and a '^lind submission to spiritual guides. The
literature of the country, such as it was, naturally
appeared on the side of those who were its principal
patrons ; and crowding in the rear, camo the young
talent and ambition of the times, Imxious to sus-
tain a system, which seemed to oiTer a rightful pre-
emhience to talent, and to ambition a station above
the vulgar level.

The array upon the other side, was contemptible
in comparison. Some leaders there were, " sons of
liberty," who had been nursed in the cradle of the
revolution, whose character, whose honor, whose pat-
riotism was unquestionable, and upon whose clear
reputation not all the outrageous calumny of their op-
ponents could fix the shadow of a stain. And there
were some followers too, who seemed to love democra-
cy for itself ; men enamoured of the idea of equality,
who sought no private advantage, but only the public
good. But these, whether leaders or followers, were
comparatively few. The mass of the party seemed
made up like the band of David, when he rose in rebel-
lion against the Lord's anointed ; — all who wcsre in
debt, all who were in distress, all who were discon-
tented, enlisted beneath this banner; and to believe
the account of their opponents, not the tatterdemalions
of Falstaff's enlistment were more idle, vicious, dis-
honest and dangerous.

The truth is, that so stem, severe, active a^d influ-
2

DESrOXjUSftl

enitia^ was the authority which the allied hierarchy
exeix^ijied, that few men who had property, standing,
character, friends, to lose, eared to risk the consequen-
ces of those bulls of excommunication which were
fuiminated from the pulpit and the press, and those
torrents pf calumny, denunciation, and abuse, poiured
^Drth by a thousand fluent tongues, against whomso-
ever deserted the ark of the coyeiiant, and allied Him-
mU to the uncircumcised Philistines.

The democratic party were not wanting in efforts
\o enlist the powerful aid of religion upon their side.
They made uriends with the Baptists and other dis-
senters from the established creed, who cherished an
hereditary l^tred toward the congregational priest-
hood, and who were struggling to (escape from the le-
gal disabilities with which their heresies still continued
to be visited. These clerical allies, in imitation of
their pppon^ts, mingled religion with politics, and
sou^t to turn the excited feelings of their hearers,
into political channels. They were denounced by the
regi^IfiHT order, as hedge-priests, sectarians, wild enthu-
uasts, pulS^ up with a ridiculous over-estimate of
tiielr spiritual endowments, ignorant, turbulent, bad
wm, who in attempting to overturn the platform on
which was raised the sober edifice of congregational-
iam, sought to destroy the foundations of society, and
to up ail things in chaotic confusion.

In this situation of afiairs, democraticai principles
were still enabled to gain the ascendeticy in New Eog-
Ifliud, and to become the prevailing creed, by the joint
eSeet of two separate causes, each of which was per-
haps potent enough in itself to have ensured the vic-
tory.

Though the professors of these principles were pro-
scribed by the New England oligarchy, declared desti-
tute of any claims to attention or indulgence, represented
as wild political fanatics, the disciples of Kobecipierre,
desirous to abolish religion, and to toot up morals, to
destroy the natural instincts of humanity, and to sprin-
kle th€^ land with fire and blood; they found encourage-

m AMSBICA.

ment, support and aid, where there was thQ teastreft-
son to expect it. to wit, at the hands of the fiomherft
slave-holders. Who could have anticipated that the
apostle of American democracy should himself haire
been an aristocrat and a despot ! Yet so it was. Jeffet*
son is revered, and justly, as the earliest, ablest, boldest
jkndmost far-going of those who became the expounders
and advocates of the democratical system in America.
" Most of the others, whether leaders or follo-wers,
seemed driven on by a blind instinct. They felt, but
did not reason. Jefferson based his political opinions
upon general principles of huinan nature. Men were
supposed, in other systems of politics, to be helpless,
blind, incapable children, unfit to take care of them-
selves, and certain, if the experiment were tried, to do
themselves presently some dreadful and irrepiarable
harm. Jefferson argued, that however weak and blind
men might be, yet their own strength and eyewsight
were still their surest hope, and best dependance. If
aid were elsewhere sought, whence could it come?
These guides, these guardians, these goirernora, whft
are they 1 Are they not men, weak and blind 1 Wotm
yet, men ready to betray the confidence placed in them,
and under pretence of protection, themselves to plun-
der and oppress 1 It is therefore better to make each
man, blind and weak though he be, the chief guardian
of his own welfare. Subject no man to the arbitrary
control of another, who if he may be wiser and l>et-
ter, may just as likely, be blinder and be worse. Such
necessary rules of social conduct as the judgment of
the majority shall approve, let them be laws, so long
as that judgment continues to approve them ; and let
the laws govern, and the laws alone.

Such was the pohtical creed of Jeflerson. It is the
creed of democracy ; find he espoused it with a warm,
an active, almost a fanatic zeal. The perfect pdlitical
equality of ail men ; the absolute right of every man
to be guided by his own pleasure and judgment, so
long as he transgresses no law, and his equal claim to
a fair participation in the enactment and repeal of

1^

DESPOTISM

every law ; these were the very ^ndamental principles
of this political system. Yet Jefferson remained ali
his life the tyrant of a plantation, in the enforcement
of an usurped authority, either personally, or by his
delegate, which he himself describes, as " a perpetual
exercise of the most boisterous passions, — the most
unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading
submission on the other." Ah Truth 1 'Tis thee
alone that men should reverence ! Do they reverence
men, it is an idolatry as base as if they bowed to stocks
and stones. Men are blind and weak, the wisest and
the best ! But Truth,— it is unblemished, in itself
eoinplete, divine, pure, perfect !

Had Jefferson attempted to preach the full extent of
his doctrines m his native state, he would doubtless
have drawn down upon his head a storm of hatred and
reproach, not rashly to have been encountered, nor eas-
ily to have been withstood. But that was an adven-
tare of difficulty and peril, which he felt no call to
undertake. Like Henry and Washington, and those
other great men whose devoted patriotism and many
virtues would make us willingly forget that on Uieir
own estates they were tyrants, — though he acknowl-
edged the trampled rights and crying wrongs of the
disenfranchised half of his fellow countrymen, he y et
despaired to make any impression upon the ignorance,
the prejudices, the blind and narrow self-interest of
the privileged class, and he contented himself with
now and then a protest against a system of tyrannical
usurpation, which carried away by custom and coa-
VNueuce, he still continued to uphold through the sup-
port of his own example.

The democracy which he preached at home, was
democracy among the aristocrats and the perfect
equality of all the members of the privileged order, has
ever been a popular doctrine in all aristocracies. The
** lovc of lil:«rty" is a phrase under which pre includ-
ed two fe^ings of a very distinct, and sometimes of
an c^posite kind. Each individual is always the ar-
dent and z^lous champion of his own liberty, be-

IH AMBSICA.

eanse the hatred of all extraneous control, the d^re
to be solely governed by the free impulses of bis 6#t!
mind, is a part of the constitution of hum«m HMnte
too essential ever (o be wanting. Hence it is that we
find kings and emperors among the champions of lib-
erty and equal rights, by which ihey understand, th6
liberty of governing their own realms without foreign
control, esnd the absolute equality of all crowned
heads. Have we not seen the Austrian and Russian
despots, leaguing with the king of Prussia and the
haughty aristocracy of England to vindicate the HBer"
ties of Europe against the usurpation and tyrannies erf
a Bonaparte 1 When the chains threatened to bind
ikemy when they were like to be compelled to b<W
their necks beneath the yoke of a master, who
sensitive than they to the degradations of serntode 1
Who more zealous, more earnest, more sincere in Hb-
erty's cause? Alexander of Russia turned a dema*
gogue, and the princes of Germany harangued their
subjects, not in the dry and austere style of absolute
authority, but with the supplicating tone, the humble
and insinuating eloquence, the flattery and fair prom'*
ises, with which ambitious men, in popular states^ siek
to inveigle the popular favor.

This passion for personal liberty bums fiercely ^
the soul of every human being, and no where fiercer
ijian in the hearts of an aristocracy bred to its posses-
sion, and- who have learned to estimate its valoe by
having constantly before their eyes the terrible con-
trast of servitude.

But the " love of liberty'* has also another mean-
ing. It describes a passion not for individual freedom,
but for the freedom of all men; a wide, expansive
feeling, the offspring of benevolence, the height of phi-
lanthropy, the extension to others of that which we
find best and most desirable for ourselves ; ita ext»l-
sion not only to those to whom we are bound by fii-
miliar ties of interest and sympathy, our ^nds and
kindred, or those whom however othersrise uncon-
nected with US, we still assimilate to oarseli^s by
2*

19

DESPOTISM

some real or fanciful analogies ; but absolutely, its
tcaision to all men, — the love of freedom wherever, by
whomsoever, exercised, as an abstract good.

It is evident that the love of liberty in this high
sense, can shine out in perfection only from hearts the
warmest, souls the most cultivated, minds the most
lofty, unclouded and serene. But fragments of it,
sparks from this celestial flame, sometimes but dim,
the saiailest atom almost, and that too buried, and quite
smothered amid the ashes of selfish passions,- -yet
dim or bright, smothered or burning clear, this passion
for universal freedom is still a part of human nature,
but a part of it which lies dead and dark in unculti-
Tated souls, and which only begins to kindle and to
blaze, in the forward and quick feeling minds of a pol-
ished and rejecting age.

To this latter feeling, noble and refined, and which
lurks, however invisible, even in the hearts of a slave-
holding aristoci^cy, Jefferson did not dare to appeal.
He was content to act the humble and comparatively
inconsiderable part of a champion for equality among
the aristocrats ; and laboring to forget that tiie impriv-
ileged class — some of whom, to believe the voice of
commion report, were his own children, — had any
greater capacities or rights than beasts of burden, he
curtailed the expansive and universal clauses of his
political creed, till the mantle of liberty which should
have extended its protection to every citizen, embraced
within its torn and mutilated folds only the privileged
order.

The oligarchical party in the southern aristocracies,
the aristocracy, so to speak, of the privileged order,
thoiu^ they were richer and better educated than their
neighbors of the common sort, had no such moral hold
upon men's minds as the hierarchy of the north. The
prejudices in favor of family and rank to which they
were indebted for the general acknowledgment of
their superiority, had been shaken by the revolution,
and after a short and inefifectual resistance, the oli-
garchical party in Virginia and the Carolinas was

IN AMSiUCA.

19

completely broken down by the vigorous assault which
the Jeffersonians made upon them. Henceforward the
most complete and democratical equality among all the
members of the privileged class, became the settled
and established creed of southern politics. But the
Jetfersonian party, while it aimed at overturning the
oligarchies of the southern states, aimed also at supre-
macy in the federal government ; and the same victory
which assured their ascendency at home, raised their
leader to the presidential chair.

From that elevation, Jefferson stretched forth a help-
mg hand to the struggling democrats of New Eng-
land ; and by means of the honors and offices within
his gift, he enUsted into their cause divers mercenaries
of courage and ability, who were seduced from the
ranks of the hierarchy, and baring taken pay at the
hands of democracy, fought vahantiy in her cause.

As the Jeffersonians continued for twenty-four years
at ihe head of the federal government^ and during all
that time, consoled, comforted, aided and abetted the
democrats of New England, the party began presently
to grow somewhat more respectable ; and as the ad-
vantages to be derived from belonging to it became
more and more numerous, converts were multiplied,
and presently there might be numbered among tliem
even some of the clergy and the lawyers.

It is evident that this process alone would at length
have given to democratical principles a nominal, if not
a practical ascendency. But as I have mentioned,
there was another cause in operation, in itself suffi-
cient to have ensured an ultimate, and a more sub-
stantial triumph. Notwithstanding the grand array
of followers mustered by the hierarchy, there were
many among them who at heart were trait(»rs to the
cause. They h&d been bred up in a horror of demo-
cracy, which they were taught to regard as the con-
centration of all possible evil, and to the repetition of
ceiiaiii dugaias containing the substance of the oligar-
chical creed. Yet insensibly they became democrats
themselves; and the superior order, to maintain its

DESPOTISM

influence aiid preserve its ascendency, was ssoon oblig-
ed to descend to all those arts of popularity, which
when practised by their opponents, they had aenounc-
ed as fit only for demagogues.

The power of the priestly and legal hierarchy consist-
ed in their monopoly of talent and education, and in a
certain superstitious reverence with which they were
regarded by the" people. So long as these two sources
of power continued in full operation, their credit could
not be shaken, and their influence carried every thing
before it. But with the progress of time, and the in-
creasing wealth of the community, education became
more general, books and periodicals were multiplied,
and knowledge was disseminated. The oligarchical
order lost their sux>eriority in this respect, and with it,
they lost the awe and veneration of the people. To
complete their discomfiture, they quarrelled among
themselves on certain points of theology ; and as the
dispute waxed warm, liin parties to it became more in-
tent upon destroying each other's influence, than upon
maintaining their own.

Such was the end of the oligarchical rule in New
England, of which some vestiges yet remain, but of
which the life and spirit has departed. The political
creed, generally and it may be said, universally, pro-
fessed, — albeit the ancient regime has still many se-
cret adherents, — is a purely democratic creed, and the
struggle for influence and ofiice between contending
politicians, turns wholly upon the question, who among
them are the best democrats, who are most devoted to
the interests of the people ?

Though the New England States formed that part
of the Union which held out longest against the general
reception of the democratic theory, yet the equal distri-
bution of property, the more extensive diffusion of
knowledge, and that feeling of personal independence
and equahty long cherished among the people, made
them from the beginning, the best adapted of all the
states, to enter fully into the spirit of democracy, and to
display, in the most striking light, the advantages of

IN AMSaiOA.

31

that form of government. Accordingly it may be said
that the New England States, notwithstanding some
gross defects in their political and social system, afford,
at this moment, the most remarkable approach any
where to be found, toward the theoretical perfection of
ideal democracy.

But it was not in New England alone, that the pro-
gress of the democratical experiment met with opposi-
tion. The middle states — New York, New Jersey and
Pennsylvania, — at the era of the revolution, contained
an oligarchy of rich land-holders, who assumed, and
for some time retained, the exclusive political control
of their respective communities. To this landed aris-
tocracy the lawyers joined themselves, as also the cler-
gy, whose influence though by no means equal to that
of their brethren in New England, was far from con-
temptible. The yeomanry of those states were in
general, nide and ignorant. As there was no system
of public schools, many of them were unable to read;
and if they were free from some of the prejudices of
the New Englanders, thev were far behind them, in
knowledge, industry, sell-respect, and that sensibility
of mind and heart, which civilization produces.

If the members of the oligarchical party in these
states, could have agreed among themselves, they might
long have maintained their influence and authority.
But presently they quarrelled, and divided into hostile
and bitter factions. Certain persons among them,
whether to secure the popular favor by putting them-
selves forward as the champions of popular rights, or
some of them perhaps, sincere converts to the creed,
soon declared themselves the patrons and champions
of democracy; but as they had a powerful resistance
to contend against at home, and opponents who, though
discomfited, still kept the field, they were fain to yield
the precedence to Jefierson and his southern supporters,
and to be content with the second part, where they
would gladly have claimed the first.

As to the states north-west of the Ohio, which are
now beginning to occupy so conspicuous a place in the

BKSPOTJSltt

Union, their origin is so recent, and their population
has hitherto been so much engrossed with the cares
and occupations incident to new settlements^ that as
yet, they have exercised but a limited influence upon
tiie sentiment and opinions of the country. That in-
fluence however has been almost purely democratic,
and from the very birth of those communities, democ-
racy has always been their prevailing political creed.

These slight and impenect historical sketches lead
ns to a fact of the greatest importance towards a cor-
rect understanding of the progress, present state, and
future prospects of political opinion and political action,
in America. Ever since the fonnation of the federal
constitution, down almost to the present moment,
strange as it may seem, the democratic party of the
Union has been headed, guided, governed and con-
trolled by certain slave-holding aristocrats of the south;
— ^Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Jackson have been
successively, III leaders, and its idols.

Under Jefferson, theoretical democracy was a new
tiling; and it was embraced with all the warmth which
novelty is apt to inspire. It formed a principal topic
of public discussion ; and was defended, if not always
by sound reasonings and substantial arguments, yet
with the enthusiastic zeal of sincere conviction.

But presently the public attention was diverted into
other channels, and became engrossed by matters
with which democracy had little or no connection.
Under Madison, the great question was, whether the
United States should resent and repel the insults and
the wrongs heaped upon them by foreign powers, and
if so, whether they should make war against the
tyrant Bonaparte, or the English aristocracy. The
democratic party was in general favorable to Bona-
parte, for he was the child, and he had declared him-
self the heir, and had seized upon the inheritance of
the French Revolution. But the very fact that they
were led by irrational sympathies, and the ardor of
political controversy, to wink at, to apologize for, and
almost to defend, tho violence and outrages of a mill-

IN AM«Bi€A.

23

tary usurper, was so Coiitrary to their principles, end
produced such a confusion of ideas, that the great
doctrines of their creed dropped almost out of sight,
and whether or not one was favorable to a war with
Great Britain, presently became the test of political
orthodoxy,— a test altogether aside from the funda-
mental principles of the democratical system.

Under Monroe, the great controversies of the day,
respected the protection of American industry ; a pure
question of national economy, upon which people
took sides, for the most part, not according to their
political opinions, but according to the views they en-
tertained of the efl'ect which this protection would b<?
likely to have upon their own private pecuniary in-
terests.

During the administrations of Madison and Mon-^
roe though the democratic creed was predominant
throughout the greater part of the country, and
though during the interval, it achie^^id its final tri-
umph in New England, yet beginning in those states
where it had earliest prevailed, and extending gradual-
ly to the rest, it degenerated almost into a mere lo?m
of words without force or vitality.

This state of things is easily explained. The
leaders of the democrtitic, as of all other political par-
ties, were for the most part adventurers, — ^mere sol-
diers of fortune, who sought credit, honors, office, and
power, by the zealous advocacy of principles which
they saw to have many adherents, but for which they
themselves felt no very devoted love, apart from the
advancement to which they hoped these principles
might help them. That advancement attained, the
party triumphant, themselves in office, they looked
with feelings of contempt upon the ladder by which
they had ascended, they were even desirous to cast it
down, lest perchance stronger men might climb up
thereby, and thrust them from their places.

The mouthy of the prophets being closed, the peo-
ple wandered as sheep without a shepherd; and
though the democratic creed was publicly professed

24

DESPOTfSM

by all, there lurked in the hearts of many a cold in-
dmerence, a sneering scepticism, a silent disbelief.

With Monroe terminated the direct line of the Jef-
fersonian succession; and then began that struggle
for the possession of the presidential chair, which has
ever since been so pertinaciously kept up,— -a contest
in the earlier part of which no one had a larger share
than John C. Calhoun, a person likely to figure in
history, for the instruction and amusement of man-
kind.

That able, but restless and unprincipled man, first
came into public life as a leading democrat ; but thai
was a time when democracy in its current sense,
meaac little more than hostility to Great Britain.
Coming from South Carolina as he did, it was but
natural that he shouid be, as he was, a thorough
aristocrat ; and that not content with the mere supre-
macy of one race over another, he desired to concen-
trate all political power in the hands of a chosen
few, of whom he himself should be the chief and
leader.

But satisfied by the result of his earUer experi-
ments, that the aristocratical party was not strong
enough to bestow that po wer at which he aimed, and
that even if it were, he would encounter on that side,
some dangerous competitors ; he turned short about,
and recolLcting the success of Jefferson, resolved to
try a new means of advancement, and to summon
up, from the slumbers of some sixteen years, the
genius of Democracy, which he fondly hoped to be
able to convert into the mere servant of his political
schemes.

The magician was able, and the charm worked
well. Dimly in tlie distance, hazy and indistinct, ap-
peared a figure, whose broad iwoportions told that
time and slumber had but increas^ its stature and
its power. One foot upon the western prairies, the
other amid the snowy hills of New England, it strode
across the land. The people saw and worshipped.
A new enthusiasm was Kindled in their hearts. No-

IN AMERICA.

25

thing could resist it. Those who put tliemselves
forward as the priests, the favored, the chosen of this
new avatar of democratical reform, were received
with confidence, welcomed with acclamation, and en-
trusted with power. So far the thing worked well,
and he who had called up this apparition of democra-
cy, succeedied in installing, as its high-priest and
chosen minister, a man who had been a slave-trader,
a man who was a slave-holder, -^ho preached liberty
and equality at Washington, but who at home was
the deapot of the Hermitage !

His purposes thus far accomplished, he who had
raised the spirit sought to lay it. But it defies his
power. Among the crowd of hypocritical worship-
pers aud blind devotees, there are found a few whose
homage is at once enlightened and sincere. They
look upon democracy not with a stupid gaze of admi-
ration, unable to distinguish between the apparent
and the real, but with a discernment, upon which the
arts of political cunning will not easily impose. De-
mocracy, in their estimation, is not a mere phantom
by whose aid the credulous may be deluded, and offi-
ces and honors be secured to the deluders ; it is a real
existence, a substantial thing, a powerful and essen-
tial means of advancing the public welfare. It is to
these adherents, that Democracy now entrusts herself
From being the nursling, the pupil, the instrument of
Southern despotism, she is about to become a rival
and an enemy. The allegiance she has so long yield-
ed to Southern step-fathers, she will yield no longer.
The alliance is broken ; and conscious of superior
power and higher claims, Democracy demands hom-
age and submission, where hitherto she has paid
them.

She prepares to act. She points in sorrow, shame
and anger, to the capital turned into a slave market;
to the broad plains of the south, watered with the
blood of their cultivators ; and to the thousand petty
despots, each arbitrary lord and irresponsible tyrant,
upon his own plantation.

DESPOTISM

It is in vain that souti lorn oppresaors console them-
selves with ideas of the insignificancse of who
miake the first assault. They may ridicule them as
foob, fanatics, women. What of that 1 Does the re-
sult of an attock depend upon the prudence, or the
wisdom of those who have volunteered for the forlorn
hope ? What matter who or what they are, those
who rush blindly and devotedly upon the open-mouth-
ed cann(m, the leveled bayonets of the enemy ? They
wre but food for powder, and they know it. In every

g^eat cause it is necessary that some should perish,
ut if the cause be great, for one that falls, ten will
be found ambitious so to suffer !

It is in vain we at the North, cry out that the con-
test is unseasonable and premature. It has begun ; it
must go on. Grant that over-zealous and fanatical
haste has precipitated a struggle which we would
gladly have deferred, and slumbering out our own
time in quiet, have thnist upon the days of our chil-
dren. No matter. In this thing we camiot have our
way. The ttumpet has sounded ; the bold and un-
quiet are rushing to the field. We may cry peace,
peace, — ^but there is no ^ace. Fight we must, upon
one side or ^e other. The contest is begun already,
and will soon become general. In such a struggle
there can be no neutrality. It is time to be choosing
under which banner we will stand !

To every one at the North, Democracy is to some
extciit familiar. Many have doubtless viewed it
through a deceptive medium, and have seen it only
as it has been reflected by ignorance, or distorted by
prejudice; all however have formed some opinion
about it, and that opinion is founded upon knowledge
either actual or imaginary. But Despotism, the des-
potism of the slave states, is a thing known at the
north only by name, and in general. Few have seen
it; fewer still have studied it; and the greater part
are totally ignorant of its real character.

Before enlisting, it is well to know the cause in
which we are to serve. It is the purpose of the fol-

Ipwksg pcnges t» exhibit the system of social polity
^tablished in the southern states, such as it is in it»
operation and effects: not in particular and accidental
instances, but generally, and by virtue of those laws
of human nature upon which the working of social
and political institutions must depend.

This inquiry is necessary for our own satisfaction.
Without making it, how can we act either reasonably
or safely ? Here is a question with two sides to it,
and one side or the other, wo must take. How eaa
we choose without knowledge ? Despotism may be
an excellent thing, well entitled to our warmest sup-
port; but how can we know it to be so, without
knowing what it is 7

Yet are we stopped short, in the very threshold of this
inquiry, by the threats and execrations of the south.
Dare to inquire ; dare look behind the veil that hides
our private doings ; dare question us, or any of our
acts, and we dissolve the Union ! Such an im|)erti-
nence is lawful cause of war, and we will wage it I

Indeed ! — It is necessary then to weigh these threats.

The Union of the States has been made the occasion
and the theme of a great deal of urmieaning declama-
tion. An idea seems to prevail, that excellent a thing
as the Union is, the people, ignorant and short-sight-
ed, may sometime take it into their heads to think
otherwise ; and therefore it is necessary to create a
prejudice in favor of the Union, — a sort of feeling for
it like that feeling of loyalty, which has often upheld
a throne in spite of the vices and the tyranny of him
who sat upon it.

Under a democratic government, prejudices of this
sort are not only useless, they are highly mischievous ;
they are but manacles and fetters put into the hands
of the artful and designing, by means of which the
people are bound, and shorn, against their interest,
and against their judgment.

The men who formed the Union were neither bet-
ter nor wiser than ourselves. For certain arguments
and reasons in its favor, they formed it ; for certain

2S

BESPOTISM

argumants anchreasons in its favor, are should sustain
it; not for itself; for in itself^ it is neither good nor
bad. It may be either, as circumstances are.

What are these reasons and arguments in favor of
the Union? Briefly these; that the Union serves to
protect us against aggressions from abroad, and civil
war at home : that it is the best guarantee of our
independence and our freedom.

But suppose this same Union to be made the pre-
text for a violent interference with our dearest rights'?
Suppose that under pretence of preserving the Union,
we are to be deprived of the liberty of the press, the
liberty of discussion, the liberty of thought, — nay
more, the libert]'- of feeling, the right of sympathy
with those who suffer 1 Suppose this Union requires
to be cemented with blood, and that we are called
upon to surrender up the noblest of our sons and
daughters to be tortured to death by southern whips,
for the grievous sin of having derfbunced despotism
with the generous emphasis of freedom 1

Are we ready to bow thus submissively before the
grim and bloody shrine of this political Moloch 1 Are
we prepared to make these sacrifices? When the
thing has changed its nature, what though it still re-
tain its former name? Though it be called a Union,
what is it but a base subjection, a miserable servitude?

Some eighty years ago, we had a Union with Great
Britain, a Union that had lasted for near two centu-
ries, -a cherished Union, the recollection of whicli
kindled a glow in every American bosom ; not a fra-
ternal Union merely, but closer yet, maternal, filial.
That connection had many things to recommend it.
It sustained our weakness; it brightened our ob-
scurity ; it made us partakers in the renown of
Britain, and part and parcel of a great nation.
What curses, eighty years ago, would have blighted
the parricide, who should have gone about to sever
that connection, so dear, so beneficial !

The mother country, not satisfied with the affec-
tion of her daufrhter, sought to abuse her power, and

)M A18EKICA.

to extort a tribute. But were all the advfintages of
pur Union with Britain to be given up, merely to
avoid the payment of a paltry tax on tea ? Were all
the calamities of civil war to be hazarded, all the
miseries; of a hostile invasion, intrigues with foreign
powers, and their dangerous interference, public debts,
standing armies, the risk of anarchy, anc f military
usurpation?

Yes, all, said our fathers, all is to be risked, rather
than surrender our pecuniary independence, rather
than become tributary to a British parliament ; rather
than be taxed at the pleasure of the mother country.
A Union upon such terms is a mockery ; it is* not the
Union we have loved and cherished. We scorn it,
and we spurn it.

So our fathers said. And when it is undertaken to
deprive us not of our money,— which, for the sake of
peace, we might be willing to part with, — ^but of that
whose value money cannot estimate ; when it is at-
temp'<«d to shut out from us the atmosphere, the essen-
tial life-breath of liberty ; when it is sought to gag
our free mouths, to forbid and stop the beating of our
free hearts; to subdue us by penal statutes into a
servile torpidity, and an obsequious silence, shall we
hesitate one moment to repel this imjpudent effort of
despotism, because, if we refuse to submit, it will en-
danger the Union ? Perish the Union ; let it ten times
perish, from the moment it becomes inconsistent with
humanity and with freedom !

Should South Carolina declare that wax, for which,
as she asserts, she has such lawful cause, and march an
array northward to enforce silence at the point of the
bayonet, the sons of those men who fought at Lexington
and Bjmker Hill, will perhaps know now to repel the
invaders ; and those states which furnished soldiers,
generals, arms and money, to re-conquer Carolina from
Comwallis and Rawdon, will be able, peradvenlure,
to vindicate their own liberties against any force which
Carolinian despots may be able to send against them.

In this matter, let us learn a lesson from these very
3*

30

DEfiPOTISM

Carolinians. It is now some twenty years since, that
South Carolina considered herself aggrieved, by what
she esteemed the usurpations of the federal govern-
ment. She accused Congress of levying taxes, which
the constitution did not authorize. No matter wheth-
er the charge were true or false ; those who made it,
doubtless were sincere. And did they quietly submit
to this aggression, rather than endanger the Union by
their resistance 7 Not they.

Though denounced at the north as rebels and traitors,
though coldly looked upon even by those states which
shared the grievance, and which had promised to as-
sist in the redress; though unaided and alone, and
harassed too by a large party at home, who threat-
ened, in the event of hostilities, to take sides with the
general government, — the South Carolinian leaders
magnanimously dared to "calculate the value of the
Union ; " and they concluded, like brave men as they
were, that rather than give place to what they es-
teemed oppression, rather than be ruled in a manner
which no constitution authorized, rather than submit
to an usurped authority, it were better to break the
Union, and risk a war.

The bold are always less in danger than the timid.
The strength and resources of South Carolina com-
pared with those of the remaining states, were but as
dust in the balance ; yet rather than provoke violent
resistance, by an exercise of doubtful authority. Con-
gress yielded ; the tariff was modified, and the prin-
ciple of pure and unlimited protection was totally
abandoned.

If South Carolina calculated the value of the Union,
when it was only a question of tariffs and of taxes,
shall we hesitate to calculate its value, when the
dearest rights of manhood are in danger ? when we
are commanded to submit in silence, and not dare to
criticise the despotism that controls us?

Let them break the Union, if they choose ; it is a
matter wherein they are free to act. But before they
break it, they will do well to revise their calculations

IN AMERICA.

31

of its value. What the southern States would be^ if
they stood aione; what elements they vhave within
themselves of civilization, greatness, saff ty, strength,
and power ; what sort of a nation they would form, if
isolated, and cut off from intercourse with their north-
ern neighbors, is an inquiry which will find its proper
place hereafter. But there are some more obvious
considerations, which our southern friends will do
well deliberately to weigh, before they judge fit to
dissolve the confederacy, and to break up those con-
stitutional guarantees by which they are now protect-
ed. As sister states, talk as they may of the n\is-
chievous intermeddlings of the north, they enjoy
privileges and an impunity, they never could expect
from a foreign, an oflended and a hostile nation.
Those unhappy fugitives who had once reached the
borders of States then truly free, could never be re-
claimed ; as between independent nations, the tortures
and the death wantonly inflicted upon northern citi-
zens would no longer be regarded with a careless un-
concern; and how many forays from the frontiers,
how many crusades of liberty would there not be un-
dertaken, by men anxious to redeem from slavery, if
not their own relatives, those at least whom they re-
gard as brothers? These collisions, sooner or later,
would inevitably bring on war ; and the broad banner
of emancipation, with fifty thousand men to back it,
once displayed, and gayly flaunting on the southern
breeze, farewell, and forever, to the despotisms of the
south !

But here wo are met again.

If you have no regard for yourselves, ?ay our south-
ern friends, fool-hardy and fanatical, if you do not
tremble at that annihilation with which we threaten
you,— pray, at least, have some consideration for us.
Remember the delicacy of our situation. Do you
wish to involve us in all the horrors of a servile in-
surrection? Why scatter "seed that will presently
germinate, and sooner or later will ripen into a har-
vest of desolation and blood?"

32

UESPOTISM

How this solemn objurgation is to bs reconciled with
the loud threat of severing the Union, and enforcing
silence and submission at the point of the bayonet,
those can best tell who are accustomed to join that
threat and ibis objurgation. In the mean time, we
may remark a curious analogy.

When the Jeffersonian aristocrats of the south first
began to preach the doctrines of democracy, it was in
terms like these that they were greeted by the north-
ern oligarchs, " Bad men, wicked, turbulent, sedi-
tious, fanatical, contrivers of mischief, what mean ye,
what do ye desire ? Would you uproot society from
its foundations 7 Would you abolish religion 7 Would
you overturn morality ? Would you do away with
government 1 Would you dissolve all ties ? Would
you put an end to the established order and rightful
propriety of things 7

" What Do y ou seek to elevate the most ignorant
and abandoned of society to a level with us, their bet-
ters arid natural superiors 7 Would you deprive us of
that power and authority which God has seen fit to
entrust to us, which is our natural right, and which
we exercise so much to our own honor, and the bene-
fit of those we rule 7

" Yes :•— and you talk of guillotines too ; you dare
to denounce us gs tyrants ; you are organizing a con-
spiracy for a general insurrection, and for the slaugh-
ter and destruction of all good men. Out upon ye, ye
Robespierres, ye Dantons, ye blood-thirsty knaves !
Democrats forsooth ! — Jacobins, atheists, murderous
villains ! Why scatter seed that will presently germi-
nate, and sooner or later, will ripen into a harvest
of desolation and blood 7 "

So they preached, and so they prated, from pul-
pits and the press. Yes, and they passed laws too.
There was the Alien Law, whereby all dangerous
foreigners were to be excluded from the country ; and
there was the Sedition Lmo^ intended to gag the press,
and to subject those who spoke disrespectfully of the
powers that were, to the penalty of fine and imprison-
ment.

IN AMERICA.

33

When the southern aristocrats offered to our fathers
the precious boon of democracy, such was the loath-
ing, such the struggling reluctance, and such the pas-
sionate indignation with which they received, and
would have rejected it. And now that we, in our
turn, recollecting with gratitude, the good offices of
the South, seek to repay the favor, and commend to
their lips that same draught, of their own concocting,
which however bitter to the taste has health and vigor
in it, Hfe and strength ; they in their turn, with the rage
and malice of spoiled and wayward children, reject the
medicine, snap at the nurse, and load their best friends
with frantic maledictions.

Let us be patient with them ;~they are sick. Yes
very sick; and when the fit is on, light-headed. Com-
pared with their disorder, all the fierce fevers that in-
fest their clime are mild and trivial. What angry
passions, what tormenting fury, what anxious fears,
what cares, forebodings, terrors, tremors, seize upon
the despot, when he feels the sceptre slipping from his
grasp, and sees his subjects ready to claim their free-
dom"?

How he has governed ; how he has trodden under
foot men good as he ; what wrongs he has inflict-
ed ; what cruel, bloody, barbarous, bitter wrongs, he
knows full well. He dreads a retribution ; he shakes
and changes color when he thinks how just that retri-
bution, and if complete, how ample ! Though he be
brave, a coward conscience chases away his courage ;
a cold sweat stands upon his brow ; and he becomes
as fearful as a child, while phantom images of guilty
actions flit round his pillow, —

By the apostle Paul, shadows to-night
Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard,
Than could the substance of ten thousand soldiers
Armed in proof.

Those frightful visions which afilict the south ;
they are but shadows. One act of generous justice,

34

DESPOTISfll IK AMERICA,

of prudent justice which yields what it caa safely
keep no longer, shall absolve the greatest tyrant of
them all, and send hini forth, a neophyte from the
baptismal fcait of freedom, pure, washed, and spotless ;
and he may walk, like Sylla the ex-dictator, through
the streets of Rome, unguarded, undisguised, and
meet at every turn one he has injured, yet never
suffer harm !

But an act like this requires a moral courage a noble-
ness of soul, not common. That justice is the highest
expediency, is a maxim which our southern friends
sometimes repeat, but a doctrine which they have not
the wisdom, nor the magnanimity to "practise.

In the mean time they need our help, our most judi-
cious care. But to afford it, we ought to understand
their actual condition; we must make ourselves fa^
miliar with that melancholy state of things, cf which
they are at once the champions and the victims.

And this knowledge is necessary to us not on their
account only, but also on our own. We form a part
of the same nation. It is hardly possible for one mem-
ber to suffer, and the disease not to extend sympatheti-
cally to tlie whole body. Suppose a general insurrec-
tion at the south,— who would be called upon for men,
arms, and money, to put it down 1 Suppose the slaves
rise upctfi their masters,— is it not the democrats of the
north, who are constitutionally bound to draw their
swords in behalf of despotism '} — those very democrats,
who have said and sworn, that resistance to tyrants
is obedience to God 7

Let us leam, then, the full extent of this obligation ;
let us know what that system i.s, which we may thus
be called upon to uphold !

CHAPTER FIRST.

THE RELATION OF MASTER AND SLAVS,

SECTION I.
The Origin of Slavery.

The relation of master and slave. like most other
kinds of despotism, has its origin in war. By the
confession of its warmest defenders, slavery is at best,
but a substitute for homicide.

Savages take no prisoners ; or those they do take,
they first torture, and then devour. But when the
arts of life have made some progress, and ttie value
of labor begins to be understood, it is presently dis-
covered that to eat prisoners, is not the most profitable
use to which they can be put. Accordingly their lives
are spared ; and they are compelled to labor for Uie
benefit of their captors. Such is the origin of Slavery.

It was formerly a practice in America to sell as
slaves such Indian prisoners as were captured during
the frequent wars waged with the aboriginal inhabit-
ants. But the great mass of those unfortimate per-
sons held in servitude throughout the southern states,
derive their origin from another source.

A Virginian planter deduces the legitimacy of his
dommion by the following process. Your great-grand-
mother being captured by a certain African prince, —
in a war, undertaken, doubtless, for the mere purpose
of making prisoners, — was sold upon the coast of
Guinea to a certain Yankee slave-trader ; and being
tnuisported by him to James River, was there sold to

36

DESPOTISM

a certain tobacco planter. In time, your great-grand-
mother died ; but she left children, to which as a part
of he? produce, the owner of the mother was justly
entitled, from that owner, through diverse aliena-
tions and descents, the title has passed to me ; and as
you are descended from the woman above referred to,
it is quite clear, how perfectly reasonable and just my
empire is.

Whether in point of logic and morals, the above
deduction is completely satisfactory, is not now the
question. The nature of the master's claim is stated
here, only as an assistance towards obtaining a clear-
er apprehension of the relations which must grow out
of it.

SECTION IL
General idea of a Slave-holding Community.

Slavery then is a continuation of the state of war.
It is true that one of the combatants is subdued and
bound ; but the war is not terminated. If I do not
put the captive to death, this apparent clemency does
not arise from any good-will toAvards him, or any ex-
tinction on my part of hostile feelings and intentions.
I spare his life merely because I expect to be able to
put him to a use more advantageous to myself. And
if the captive, on the other hand, feigns submission,
still he is only watching for an opportunity to escape
my grasp, and if possible to inflict upon me evils as
great as those to which I have subjected him.

War is justly regarded, and with the progress of
civilization it comes every day more and more to be
regarded, as the very greatest of social calamities.
The introduction of slavery into a community, amounts
to an eternal protraction of that calamity, and a uni-

IN AMERICA.

37

versa! diffusion of it through the whoie mass of socie-
ty, and that too, in its most ferocious form.

When a country is invaded by a hostile army,
within the immediate neighborhood of the camp it
becomes impossible to make any effectual resistance.
However fierce may be the hate with which they liiok
upon the invaders, the inhabitants within the range
of their scouting parties, are obliged to submit. They
are made to furnish wood, forage and provisions;
they are forced to toil in the entrencliment of the
camp; their houses are liable to be ransacked and
plundered, and their women to be subjected to the
lusts of the soldiers. Upon certain emergencies, the
ablest bodied among them will be armed, siurounded
by foreign squadrons, and obliged to fight against
their own countrymen. But though plundered with-
out mercy, and liable to the most frightful injuries,
yet as their services are valuable, and even necessary
to the invaders, they must be allowed to retain the
means of sustaining existence ; and if under all the
discouragements to which they are subjected, they
neglect or refuse to cultivate their fields, they must
be driven to work at the point of the bayonet, lest the
invaders might suffer from their negligence, and fall
short of forage and provisions.

Now every plantation in the slave states is to be
looked upon as the seat of a little camp, which over-
awes and keeps in subjection the surrounding peasan-
try. The master claims and exercises over his slaves
all the rights of war above described, and others yet
more terrible. Consider too that this infliction is not
limited to a single neighborhood, as in the case of an
invading army, but is scattered and diflfused over the
whole extfent of the country ; nor is it temporary as
in the other case, but constant and perpetual. It is
by taking a view like this, that we are enabled to form
a primary, general, outline idea of the social condition
of a slave-holding community.
4

% DESPOTISM

SECTION IIL
The Empire claimed by ike Master.

The relation of master and slave, as we may con-
clude from the foregoing statements, is a relation
purely of force and terror. Its only sanction is the
power of the master ; its best security, the fears of the
slave. It bears no resemblance to any thing like a
social compact. Mutual interest, faith, truth, hon-
esty, duty, affection, good-will, are not included, in
any form whatever, under this relation.

But let us descend somewhat into particulars, and
inquire more specifically what is the nature of the
empire claimed by the master.

That empire is the most absolute and comprehen-
fdve which it is possible to imagine. The master
considers his slaves as existing solely for his benefit.
He has purchased, and he possesses them for his own
sake, not for theirs. His sole object is to obtain the
greatest possible profit out of them.

Perhaps to obtain this greatest profit, it may be ne-
cessary to feed them plentifully, and clothe them well,
and to allow them certain intervals of rest, and other
like indulgences. If the master is of that opinion, he
acta accordingly. But in so acting he merely pursues
his own advantage. If he has adopted the contrary
opinion, if he imagines that he can save more by re-
trenchment than he can make by outlay, in that case
he cuts down the allowance of rest, food, and clothing,
and endeavours to supply the deficiency by the stim-
ulus of the lash. It is a mere matter of calculation
either way ; not a question of morals, but a mere
problem of domestic economy. The slaves are not
thought of as sentient beings, but as machines to be
kept in profitable operation.

One who visits a slave-holding community, for the
first time, if he have any feeling of humanity and
any spirit of observation, is puzzk i and shocked, by

IN AMERICA.

what appears to him a series of distressing uncongrui-
ties. Men who in their relations towards those whom
they acknowledge as fellow-citizens, fulfil with promp-
titude and exactness all the duties of benevolence and
justice, in their conduct towards their slaves, often
seem destitute of all human sympathies.

This course of action resultii from the very position
of a master ; and men naturally of the most iKjnevo-
lent dispositions, become reconciled to it by force of
custom and education. The soldier, frank, generous,
warm-hearted, ready to share his last dollar with his
comrade, from the moment he enters an enemy's
country becomes a violent, fierce, and brutal robber,
who plunders whenever he has opportunity, without
hesitation or remorse.

It is exactly so with the master of slaves. His con-
duct towards his fellow-citizens, and towards his ser-
vants, is regulated by rules and considerations totally
distinct. In making this distinction, he is supported
by the laws of the land, and the dogmas of the church;
upheld by the example and countenance of his friends
and neighbors ; and encouraged by the approbation,
open or implied, of all the world. If nobody fijads
fault with his conduct, why should he think of chang-
ing it 1 Why relinquish a lordship and a revenue,
which every body tells him he does right to retain?

The value of this lordship, and the amount of this
revenue, would be nothing at all, if instead of looking
steadfastly, and with a single eye, to his own interest,
the master should trouble himself about the well-be-
ing of his slaves. Their well-being evidently requires
the liberty on their part of pursuing their own hap-
piness, according to their own notions of it ; and it
clearly demands the disposal at their pleasure of the
entire fruits of their own labor. That is, it requires
the complete cessation of the master's empire. But it
is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be at
the same time ; so that whoever wishes to retain thrf
character of a master, and to exercise the prero^-
tires which that character confers and impUes, is

40

DESPOTISM

driven, by an invincible necessityj to disregard the well-
being of his slaves, and to consider solely his own

Erofit. Whether indeed that profit is best promoted |
y retaining the character of master at all ; whether
the master's interest, upon a full and comprehensive
view of it, might not best be advanced by ceasing to
be a master, is a question not now under discussion.

But in communities where all are free, how many
are there, who regard any interest except their own ?
And wherein is the particular evil of slavery in this
respect?

The peculiar evil of slavery consists in the very
fact, that the slaves do not stand in this particular on
a level with other men; they are not allowed to
pursue their own interest. Not only is the well-be-
ing of the slaves disregarded by the masters, it is
deUberately sacrificed. Left to themselves, like other
men, they would pursue their own happiness, with
success, less or greater. But their own happiness is
a thing they arc not suffered to pursue ; and if yield-
ing to the instinctive impulses of nature, they make
the attempt, they are thwarted and driven back at
every turn. Their own comfort or pleasure is a thing
they are not allowed to think of at all ; or to think of
only at the risk of the ?ash.

In free communities, selfishness itself is enlisted
mto the service of benevolence. In order to obtain
favors, it is necessary to confer them. Mutual ser-
vices are secured by the attraction of mutual interest.
But mutuality is a thing which slavery knows not.
The master does not say, " W ork for me, and I will
give you in return wheitjwith to feed and clothe
yourself and family." " Work for me," he says, "or
1 will torture you with the lash!" If the master
supplies the slave with food and clothes, he does not
do it by way of compensation for labor, it is a ne-
cessary expenditure, grudgingly laid out, in order to
keep these human machines in motion. So far from
being in the natunre of a bargain or contract, slavery
is nothing but violence upon one side, and compulsive
obedience upon the other.

m AMERICA.

41

SECTION IV.

Meatis of enforcing the Masier^s Empire.

To sustain an empire of the kind above described,
it is evident that the most vigorous means must be es-
gential.

The means employed are chiefly three, to wit : force,
terror, frawd; and according to the different tempers, tal-
ents, habits and notions of the master, one or the other
of these three means, is made the key of his system.

I. FoacE. Those masters whose tempers are hai^,
violent, and brutal, especially those who have never
been f.oftened by education, and who are strangers to
the refinements of cultivated life, and others who are
endowed with a firm, decided vigor that moves direct-
ly to the point, and by the shortest way, rely princi-
pally upon force.

Is the slave late in coming into the field ? Twenty
lashes. Is he idle? Thirty lashes. Does he disobey
or neglect an order 1 Forty lashes. Does he neghgentiy
waste or destroy his master's property } Fifty lashes.
Is he detected in a Ue % Sixty lashes. Is he strongly
suspected of theft? Seventy lashes. Does he say
or do any thing that can be construed into* insolence?
Eighty lashes. Is he guilty of the slightest act of
insubordination ? One hundred lashes. Does he ven-
ture to run away ? Let him be pursued by men and
dogs, disabled by small shot, and so soon as he is t«,-
ken, be flogged till he faints, then be worked in chains,
locked up every night, and kept on half allowance, till
his spirits are broken, and he bwiomes obedient and
contented. Should he dare, upon aiiy occsusion, to offer
any resistance ? Let him be shot, stabbed, beat to the
ground with a club, and should he not be killed in the
process, as soon as he is so far recovered as to be able
to stand, let him be subjected to all the discipline men-
tioned in the preceding sentence, and in addition, be
fledged every night, for thirty days in succession.

42

DESPOTISM

Such is a brief specimen of this system of plantation
management, which some call cruel, but which those
■who follow it, merely describe as vigorous and efficient.

II. Terror. But there are many men, naturally soft-
hearted, who cannot look without some feelings of
sympathetic pain, or at least of instinctive disgust,
upon the body of an old man, or a woman perhaps,
cut up with the lash, and scored with bloody gashes.
The screams and outcries of the victims affect them
disagreeably. They lack that harsh, unfeeling vigor,
that stem promptitude, tyranny's steadiest and most
efficient support. Tliey endeavor to avoid the actual
use of the whip, and to govern as far as possible, by
the fear of it. They utter most tremendous threats,
and strive to supply by bitter and alarming words, the
place of action. But v/ords, when they are found to
be intended only as scare-crows, soon lose their effica-
cy. It is therefore necessary to maintain a steady
stream, and the master who governs upon this wordy
plan, soon comes to keep both himself and his slaves,
in a constant state of irritation and ill feeling, by a
process of fault-finding, scolding and threats, which
becomes a habit, and goes on from morning to night,
from day to day, from one year's end to another.

The slaves, who are thus made to feel every mo-
ment the weight of tyranny, and the humiliation of
servitude, contract towards these snarling masters, the
sincerest hate ; and from hating, being soon satisfied
that with all their bluster, they have not the vigor to
act up to their threats, they come presently to despise
them. Whether they do well or ill, it is much the
same, the master scolds on by habit ; but though he
scolds, as yet he does not punish ; and the bolder among
the slaves soon begin to try experiments upon his pa-
tience. They are encouraged by the impunity of first
transgressions to take greater and greater liberties.
Their example finds imitators, till presently the whole
plantation falls into a state of idleness and insubordi-
nacy, which cannot be longer overlooked or endured.

The master must now give up the hope of revenue

IN AMERICA.

43

from his slaves, or he nmst re-establish his authority.
He begins with moderate whippings. But his first at-
tempts in this way are laughed at, or perhaps resisted.
He is alarmed and inflamed. Anger and fear supply
a vigor he does not naturally possess. He storms and
raves ; flogs without mercy ; shoots, stabs, chains, im-
prisons, starves, tortures. His nature seems to be
changed, and for a while he acts out the tyrant, in the
most savage and vihdictive spirit of despotism. The
slaves bend and bow beneath this whirlwind of tyran-
ny. The m.ost turbulent and unmanageable, — those
of them at least, who have escaped with their lives, —
are sent off and sold ; and presently things subside in-
to their former state. The master grows ashamed of
his violence, and perhaps endures some twinges of re-
morse ; the lash is disused, and the tongue supplies its
place. The discipline of the plantation is presently
relaxed ; the servants become idle and insubordinate as
before; but this flattering calm cannot be relied upon;
a new storm of tyranny is secretly brewing, which
will burst at a moment when it is least expected.

HI. Fraud. There are some masters, who pride
themselves upon their cunning and superior knowledge
of human nature, who make considerable use of fraud,
in the management of their slaves ; but this is a means
employed only occasionally, and of which the efficacy
is not great.

One of the most usual applications of it, is the at-
tempt to take advantage of the religious feelings of
the slaves, and to impress them with the idea, that
obedience, honesty towards their masters, humble sub-
mission, and other like plantation virtues, are religious
duties, which God commands, under the penalty of
damnation.

This stratagem is chiefly practised by slave-holding
clergymen and church members. The religious peo-
ple of the South have been at the pains of preparing
a slave catechism ; in some places they have establish-
ed slave Sunday schools; and meetings for slave-
worship are regularly held. The immediate agents

44

DESPOTISM

in these proceedings, are generally men of good in-
tentions, but of very feeble understandings. They
are mere tools in the hands of crafty hypocrites. The
motive of their labors is doubtless the spiritual welfare
of the slaves ; but those by whom they are supported
and encouraged, however tender a regard they may
have for the salvation of their own souls, look upon
religion among slaves merely as a means of plantation
discipline ; and please themselves with the idea that
the more religious their slaves are, the easier they may
be managed.

The agents employed in this double service of Chris-
tianity and despotism, often succeed in kindling a
warm spirit of devotion in the hearts of the slaves ;
but they have often occasion to deplore the inconsist-
ency, the back-sliding, the delusion of their converts,
who cannot be made to realize* in its full extent, the
enormous sinfulness of any attempt to elude that ty-
ranny under wliich providence requires them patient-
ly, and even joyfully to submit.

Deeply sympathizing with the sad, and almost an-
gry feelings, with which these pious people are accue-
tomed to lament the small success of their labors, and
to accuse that stony-heartedness and inherent deprav-
ity which prevents even the converted slaves from at-
taining to the perfection of humility and obedience,
the remark nevertheless may with all due deference,
be permitted, — that so long as these pious teachers are
able to construe the generous precepts of the gospel
into an apology and a justification for tyranny, it can-
not be considered very surprising that their pupils
among the slaves, should instinctively acquire the art
of reconciling with christian patience and submission,
any and every means, whereby they can shake ofi",
alleviate, or elude the usurped authority of their mas-
ters.

But this piece of pious fraud is falling into bad odo*
at the South. It has been found that religion causes
an excitement Eunong the slaves, both dangerous and
tioublesome. The rascals preach and pray when they

IN AMERICA.

45

ought to be working. Besides, that rehgious enthusi-
asm, which kindles so readily in the most ignorant as
well as the most cultivated minds, gives rise to a dan-
gerous exaltation of soul which makes the subjects
of it obstinate and unmanageable. Religion once
awakened in such savage and untaught bosoms, is apt
to degenerate into a superstitioi s *anaticism. The
gifted and the artful begin to see viciions, and to dream
dreams. They are not content with being hearers
and pupils, they aspire to be speakers and teachers.
In their sermons and exhortations, it is the vices, the
luxury, the cruelty, the wickedness of the masters,
upon which they principally dwell, and whence they
draw examples and illustrations ; and who knows but
some one more enraptured than the rest, may imagine
himself called, like Moses of old, to smite the task-
master, and to lead forth the oppressed children?

For these reasons the bible has been proscribed at
the South, as an incendiary publication ; a book not
fit for slaves to read or hear. In some parts of the
country the catechism is looked upon with almost equal
suspicion ; and many masters forbid their slaves to
hear any preacher, black or white, since they consider
religion upon a plantation as quite out of place, a thing
dangerous to the master's authority, and therefore not
to be endured in the slave.

Another stratagem, occasionally employed, when it
is desired to stimulate the efforts of the slaves, is the
distribution of little prizes among those who accom-
plish the greatest labor in the shortest time. This
contrivance works wonderfully well for a few days ;
but as soon as it is discovered who are the ablest work-
men, the emulation is confined to them, and the greater
number, who have no chance to win the prize, pres-
ently relapse into their former apathy. Besides, this
distribution of prizes, is apt to give rise among the
slaves to the inconvenient notion, that they ought to
be paid for working, and the moment it ceases, they
work more grudgingly, unwillingly and negligently
than ever. Moreover it is expensive ; in the minds of
most planters, a decisive objection against it.

46

DESPOTISM

But there are cases when force and terror casmot be
employed, or fail to answer the purpose, and where
stratagem is necessarily resorted to. The most com-
mon of these cases, are the detection and prevention
of theft, and the re.;overy of runaways.

, Upon these occasions, the most respectable and re-
ligious masters do not hesitate to descend to every pet-
ty art of fraud and falsehood. They have hired spies
and informers among the slaves ; they blacken their
own faces, and lurk in disguise about the cabins, peep-
ing through the cracks, and listening at the doors.
They lure the fugitives back into their power, by the
most ample promises of pardon, which they break w^ith
as little hesitation as they make them. Not uncom-
monly thty attempt to take advantage of the supersti-
tious ignorance of the slaves, and pretend to magical
and supernatural powers, in hopes of frightening the
culprit into confession. They exult over the success
of these fraudulent arts : and in all transactions with
their slaves, their total want of respect for their own
word has given ample occasion for the proverb com-
mon among the unprivileged class, which describes
white men as "mighty uncertain."

Of the three principal means above enumerate/d, and
briefly explained, upon which the sustentation of the
slave-master's empire depends, it is evident that the
first involves the second; for the surest way of striking
a deep terror into the heart is, to punish every trans-
gression with a stern and unrelenting severity.

It accordingly happens that those who act upon this
plan not only have the least trouble upon their planta-
tions, but are often comparatively popular, so to speak,
with their servants. The certainty of punishment
greatly diminishes the necessity of its frequent inflic-
tion. The slaves know exactly what to expect; how
far they can go ; and what is the limit they cannot
safely transgress. If the rule is an iron one, it is never-
theless steady and sure. It does not partake of that
uncertainty, which besides being a dangerous tempta-
tion, is in itself one of the greatest of evils. Slaves

IN AMKRiCA.

47

are like other men; and in general, they far prefer to
take a punishment, and have it over, to being perpetu-
ally scolded, threatened, cursed and stormed at, even
though there may be hope that the storm will end in
words, and pass over without raining blows.

But this regular and systematic discipline, resem-
bling the despotic precision of a well drilled army, is
to be found only upon a very few plantations. Most
masters and most overseers are too negligent, or too
good humored for their business, or else are ignorant of
the real nature, and only sure support of the authority
they exercise. They overlook some offences because
Iheydo not want the trouble of punishment; some they
permit to go unnoticed, because they hate to flog a wo-
man, or a child ; some allowances they make for the
petulance of old age, or the hot temper of youth. But
every liberty that goes unpunished is made a pretence
for yet greater liberties ; the slaves, always eager and
watchful to regain any particle of freedom, perceive
in an instant, and with unerring sagacity, every indi-
cation of weakness, or want of vigor on the part of
their master ; they artfully break, now this link, and
now that, from their chains ; till at length, beginning
to feel something of the spirit of liberty, their " inso-
lence," to use the master's phrase, becomes intolera-
ble, and waking from his dream of indulgence and
good nature, their despot is obliged to vindicate his
authority, and to repress the licentiousness of his slaves,
by a sudden outbreak of violence and cruelty, which,
however he may excuse it by the plea of necessity, he
cannot think of, in his sober moments, without some
disagreeable feelings of self-condemnation.

Thus it is that the greater part of Southern planta-
tions are the scenes of a constant struggle ; idleness,
encroachments, a passive resistance upon one side ;
negligence and yielding first, then passion, violence
and cruelty upon the other.

48

DESPOTISM

SECTION V.
Means of resistance on the part of the slaves.

We come now more minutely to consider, with what
feelings the slaves look upon their own lot, and what
resistance they make to the usurped authority of their
masters. For by the very constitution of human na-
ture, it happens of necessity, that such an authority
must be resisted, in some shape or other.

As to escaping from a condition to which they seem
to have been born, and in which they are held by the
joint interest, real or supposed, of all the members of
the privileged class, that is, of all those who make and
enforce the laws, and who alone possess knowledge,
wealth and influence in the community ; — such a de-
liverance appears impossible, and rarely enters into
their thoughts. It is true that running away is ex-
tremely frequent ; but in ninety-nine cases out of a
hundred, the runavay is speedily retaken and severe-
ly punislxed ; and the attempt is generally made, not
with any hope of ultimate escape, but as a means of
eluding for the moment some threatened misery, which
the unhappy fugitive has not the courage to face.

However, if a door were opened for their escape ; if
by any circumstance they were induced to entertain
the idea of it, and if that idea budded into hope, it is not
to be supposed that they would stickle, or hesitate at
any means, however horrible, that seemed necessary
or convenient, towards the accomplislmient of that
great end. Prisoners of war, if they caii but take their
guards at unawares, are accustomed to stab them with
.heir own bayonets, and by that bloody means, to break
away. Captives, such as slaves are, must be expected
to act upoi?. Ihe same ideas ; but with a promptitude
the readier, and a hate the more earnest, in proportion
to their longer restraint and their greater provocation.
When has the master respected the person of his slaves'?
Would he hesitate one moment to stab, shoot, hang, ur

IN AMERICA.

49

burn the best beloved of his servants, if he supposed
that servant's life inconsistent with his safety, or with
the security of that tyrannical empire, upon which de-
pends his condition of master ? Let there be the whis-
per of an insurrection, and the old trees of the plant-
ation, shall dance with dying men strung thick as
acorns. This the slavts know ; and knowing it, what
wonder, when the desperate project of insurrection is
resorted to, what wonder, if they grant no mercy where
they can expect none ? What wonder, if with the tor-
ture of death by a slow fire, or by some other means
equally cruel, before their eyes, they feel no clemency ?
What wonder, if they steel their hearts to pity, and
emulate their masters in bloody cruelties and barbar-
ous revenge? In so doing, they merely practise a les-
son they have been all their lives learning; all their
lives, the sword has been pointed at their hearts, and
if they in any way succeed in grasping it by the hilt,- —
what wonder if they use it ?

If it were possible to speak otherwise than seriously
upon so grave a matter, it would be difficult to point
out any thing more ridiculous than the frantic fear,
the panic terror, the ineffable alarm spread throughout
the South, by the slightest suspicion of insurrection
among the slaves. That the women and children
should be terrified, is natural enough ; but that men,
men of violence and blood, accustomed to go their
daily rounds with the pistol in one hand and the whip
in the other, men who have every advantage on their
side with the single exception of justice, — an exception
however, which they aflect to deny and disregard : —
that such men should stagger and turn pale at the
mere report of a distant insurrection, can only be, be-
cause a guilty conscience disturbs their reason, and
frights away their courage.

Do they not know the stake for which they play?
Have they not considered the conditions of the game '?
What !^Do they entertain the puerile notion, that an
eternal war can be waged, and all the blows, the
thrusts, the cuts, the wounds, the danger, be only on
5

60

DESPOTISM

one side? Is it so terrible and atrocious a thing, that
my enemy dares to struggle in my gi-asp? What
though I have him on the ground, my knee upon his
breast, and a dagger ut his throat, is it so strange that
even in that position, still he resists, and strives to push
his weapon to my heart?

Slavery being in its nature, a permanent stateof war,
although the overwhelming force of the masters re-
strains the slaves for the most part to an apparent sub-
mission, yet occasional outbreaks must from time to
time be expected. The ignorance in which the slaves
are kept, makes them incapable of perceiving the utter
hopelessness of success ; and there are some hot tempers,
and enthusiastic minds, which, though they did per-
ceive it, would still be ready to risk any thing and every
thing, for the most trifling chance of freedom and re-
venge. The danger from these outbreaks is extremely
small. They will cost the masters now and then a few
lives ; but that is the fortune of war, and those brave
soldiers who can slaughter the enemy with such per-
fect indiflference, if notwith absolute gusto, ought to be
able to lose a few of their own number, without being
so wholly carried away with panic terror.

An intended rising requires preparations, means, and
an extended combination, which generally lead to its
detection before the conspirators are ready to act. Be-
sides, it is only under peculiar circumstances, that any
thing of the kind can be attempted. The slaves are
so much in the power, and at the mercy of their mas-
ters, that they seldom venture upon any thing like vio-
lent opposition ; they content themselves, for the most
part, with a passive resistance.

The master claims, and endeavors to possess him-
self of the whole time, capacity and labor of the slave.
The slave does not venture openly to resist this rob-
bery; but he attempts, by ail the silent and quiet means
in his power, to evade it, to escape the exactions, and
to diminish the plunder of his master.

He yields his time from day-light, imtil dark; or
raUier he seems to yield it; for if he be not constantly

IN AMSBIC&.

^1

watched, he contrives to regain hours and moments,
which as he can apply them to no better use, he spends
in idleness or sleep. His capacity is a thing more in his
own power. It is in general, only certam simple acts
of manual labor that can be extorted by force. The
mind is free. A master cannot force his slave to rea-
son, to remember, or except in certain cases, to hear,
or see. If he is sent with a message, he forgets it. He
never considers that if the fence is broken, the cattle
will get among the corn : and if they do, he neither sees
nor hears them. The thing he is commanded to do,
that single thing he does, and nothing else. The mas-
ter would go hunting, and he sends his slave to bring
his powder-flask. The siave sees there is no powder
in it ; — but what is that to him ? — he does as he was
bid, and carries the flask. When the gun is to be
loaded, it appears then there is no ammunition. " Go
home," says the master, "in the closet on the upper
shelf there is a canister of powder : fill the flask, and
bring it to me." As it happens, there are two canis-
ters, one good, the other damaged. The slave takes
down the damaged canister first, and without further
examination fills the flask with powder that cannot be
used, and carries it to his master. He is set to plant-
ing corn. The seed, it chances, is worm-eaten and de-
cayed. What is that to him 1 He goes on planting.
It is just so in every thing else. He neglects to exer-
cise his reasoning faculties at all. He becomes appa-
rently as stupid and thoughtless as the mule he drives.
Whatever capacity or understanding he may have, he
sinks it, hides it, annihilates it, rather than its fruits
should be filched from him by his owner.

He is compelled txy labor so many hours ; but he
takes care to labor to the least possible advantage.
Nothing stimulates him but the fe.ar of the whip ; and
under the show of diligence he proceeds with the
greatest possible dawdling and deliberation. Is he a
brick-layer? He selects a brick with caution and
solemnity ; he turns it over a dozen times ; he looks
as carefully at every side of it as if it were covered

52

DESPOTISM

with intelligible hieroglyphics ; he feels the corners and
the edges; he fits it to its place; removes it; takes
up the mortar ; spreads and sloAvly arranges it with
his trowel ; and at last — lays the brick.

In ail those processes which require any thing of
skill or judgment, it is impossible to extort a large
amount of labor from a slave. He conceals his idle-
ness so cunningly, any attempt to drive him seems to
put him into such a flutter and confusion, that he
bungles or spoils his work, and it becomes necessary
that it should be done over again, allowing the work-
man his own time. The master can only insist that
he shall devote his whole time to the work, but he
must be content to let him dally and trifle with it as
he chooses.

Hence it is that slave labor is only profitable for
those rude and simple processes, which demand no-
thing but an exertion of muscular strength. A slave
may be driven by the whip to cut up grass with the
hoe, or to pick cotton with his fingers, nearly or quite
as fast as a freeman, who labors for himself ; but to
compel this labor he must be constantly watched and
pressed ; and if the whip is not used upon his shoul-
ders, he must at least see it brandished in the air as a
spur to his activity.

The day, from earliest dawn oft times till long past
dark is all the master's; but the night, since the hu-
man machine requires some rest and relaxation, is
principally yielded to the slave. He is thus trans-
formed into a nocturnal animal. During the day, he
appears a dull, stupid, sleepy, inanimate thing, with-
out sense or spirit, littie better than an idiot, and
neither so sprightly nor so sensible as the horse he
drives. At night, he becomes quite another creature.
He runs laughing, singing, jesting, to his cabin. With
his calabash of corn, he hastens to the hand mill ; and
as one grinder succeeds another, the rumbling of the
stones is heard all night, a doleful sound, mixed with
the curses and execrations of those who grind. But
it rumbles on with a steadiness which shows with

IN AMKRICA.

03

what incessant industry the mill is plied, and which
is evidence enough that those who grind, labor not
for their master, but themselves. His corn cracked
into hominy, or ground to meal, he kindles up a fire,
and prepares his simple, and too often scanty supper;
his family gathers about the smoking dish ; they eat
with lively talk and laughing repartee ; and as ao
whip cracks in their ears, they readily forget that
such a thing exists.

The meal ended, they do not think of sleep. They
meet for talk and dances. The more daring secretly
mount their master's horses and ride to visit their
cronies upon some neighboring plantation. One goes
courting, another to see his wife ; some v/ith dogs and
axes hunt the opossum, a night-walker like them-
selves ; some meet to preach and pray ; others prowl
about to see what thing of value they can lay their
hands upon. Others yet, with bags of stolen corn or
cotton on their heads, secretly set oflf to visit some
petty trader, who receives their stolen goods in ex-
change for whiskey. Some have a bottle on hand,
and collecting their intimates about them, they drink,
and emboldened by the liquor, they discuss the con-
duct of their masters, or the overseer, with a keen
freedom, a critical observation, an irony as bitter as it
is just ; — happy if a prowling overseer, or some false-
hearted spy does not stand listening, and make them
presently pay the penalty of free discussion. It is
only toward morning that they think of sleep ; and it
is surprising with how little- sleep they exist. But in
fact, their day time is but a lethargy, during which,
though the body be active, the mind slumbers.

But as the slaves become more numerous, and the
masters more timid and more exacting, tyranny takes
possession even of the night. At dark, the slaves are
penned up like cattle, and forbidden to leave their
nuts, lest they should employ themselves in plunder,
or in plotting insurrection ; or if merely indulging in
sports and amusements, lest they should exhaust that
strength and vigor, which the master claims as vhoUy

54

DESPOTISM

his. The dance is forbidden; no merry laugh i?
heard, no torch-lights are seen glancing and streaming
on the darkness, or eclipsing the splendor of the moon,
as the slaves pass from one cabin to another. All is
still as night and tyranny can make it ; and if the
slaves, spite of this despotism, yet have their meet-
ings, for talk, for drinking, for plunder, or for prayer,
all are equally prohibited, and they steal forth with
slow and stealthy steps, watchful and cautious as the
midnight wolf

The masters grievously complain of this night-
walking propensity on the part of the slaves. Besides
the efforts of each planter to suppress it on his own
estate, and the barbarous severity, with which it is
customary to punish slaves for being found visiting
on a plantation to which they do not belong, — public
patrols are established for the purpose of arresting,
flogging, and sending home, all slaves caught wander-
ing at large without a pass, that is, a written permission.

The two grand charges, however, brought against
the slaves, and which are quoted by the masters as
decisive proofs of their lamentable depravity, and to-
tal destitution of all moral principle, are the accusa-
tions of ly^ng, and of theft

1. The slaves, we are told, are arrant liars. They
lie for themselves ; they lie for each other ; and to de-
ceive their master or the overseer is esteemed among
them as an action, not blameless only, but even
praiseworthy.

Well, — why not? Falsehood has ever been con-
sidered a lawful art of war ; and slavery, as we have
seen, is but a state of protracted hostilities. Do we
not applaud a general for the stratagems and arts by
which he deceives, misleads, entraps his enemy? Do
not the very masters themselves, chuckle and exult
over the ingenious falsehoods by which they have de-
tected a theft, or recovered a runaway? Though
they be tyrants let them use a little philosophy. Di-
onysius did so, and so did Pisistratus. with their
masters, enemies who have seized them, and who

IN AAIfiaiCA,

65

keep them by force, the slaves are not connected by
any ties of social duty. It is a condition of open war ;
and as in point of strength, the slaves are wholly
overmatched, stratagem and falsehood are their only
resource; and if by bold lying, vociferous protesta-
tions, and cunning frauds, they can escape some
threatened aggression, if they can so secure some par-
ticle of liberty from the prying search and greedy grasp
of despotism, why blame them for acts, which in like
cases, all the world has justified, and has even exalt-
ed to the character of heroism ?

In a slave, considered as a slave, canning is almost
the sole quality of mind which he has any occasion to
exercise ; and by long practice it is sometimes carried
to an astonishing perfection. Under an air of the great-
est heedlessness and stupidity, and an apparent apathy
more than brutal, there is occasionally veiled a quick
and accurate observation, a juct estimate of temper and
disposition, lively and ardent feelings, and a loftiness
of spirit, which some day perhaps, will burst its ordi-
nary cautious bounds, and terminate the life of its
possessor, by bullets, knives, the gibbet, or the flames.

2. It is astonishing say the masters, how destitute
of all conscience these rascals are. The best among
them, the most pious and obedient, are no more to be
trusted than so many foxes. Even our domestic ser-
vants steal every thing they can touch. There must
be a lock on every door, every trunk, every closet.
But even the strictest w^atchfulness is no match for
their arts ; and the sternest severities eannot repress
their spirit of plunder.

The slaves it seems then, however overmastered
and subdued, do still, in a silent and quiet way, and
to the best of their ability, retort upon their masters
the aggressions and the robbery that are perpetrated
on themselves.

Property, it is to be recollected, is a thing establish-
ed among men, by mutual consent, and for mutual
convenience. The game I have killed, the fish I have
caught, the vegetables I have cultivated, are decided

S6

BESPQTISM

to be mine, and are secured to me by the consent and
warranty of aii my tribe, because the security and
comfort of each member of it requires for himself the
like privilege and protection. But between slaves and
masters, there is no such compact; no such consent, no
such mutual arrangement. The masters claim all ; and
so far as they are able, they take all ; and if the slaves
by stealth, by art, by cunning, can secretly regain
the possession of some gleanings' from the fruits of
their own labor, why should they not It is in their
eyes a spoiling of the Egyptians ; it is a seizure and
appropriation of things to which they surely have a
better title than the masters.

Is it to be supposed that in the prosecution of a per-
petual war, the plunder will be all upon one sidel
The disproportion is doubtless very great ; the aggres-
sors, as their strength and means are so superior, car-
ry ofl' rich trophies and abundant spoils ; the con-
quered are well pleased to gather some fragments, to
filch some trifles from the over-loaded stores of the
triumphant invaders, who plundering upon a great
scale themselves, are yet astonished at the depravity
of those who plunder on a small one. To expect,
as between masters and slaves the virtues of truth,
probity and benevolence, i.s ridiculous. Slavery re-
moves the very foimdation of those virtues.

SECTION VI.

The treatment of American slaves considered as ani-
mals.

The slave-master desires to look upon his slaves as
he does upon his horses ; to persuade himself that his
empire over both is equally just ; and that the clauns
and rights of horses and of slaves, are confined with-
in the same limits.

IN AMERICA.

57

But even in this view of the case, narrow and false
as it is, the slave-holder too often falls lamentably
short of what common humanity, and ordinary good
nature require.

A slave is an expensive animal, since he must be
supplied not only with shelter and food, but with fire,
and clothing. There are however several circum-
stances in the condition of the southern stales, which
operate at present to reduce these expenses to a mini-
mum.

The houses of the slaves for the most part, are lit-
tle miserable log cabins, with chimneys of sticks and
clay, without windows, and often without a floor,
but one step in advance of the primeval wigwam.
They contain but one room, in which the whole fami-
ly is huddled together without any regard to the pri-
vacies or decencies of life ; nor are they in any respect
superior, if indeed they are equal, to the stables or the
cow house. The furniture is as rude as the dwelling,
and betokens the lowest state of poverty and destitu-
tion. When these cabins have become thoroughly
rotten, and ready to tumble to the ground, they are re-
built at no other expense except a few rtays labor of
the plantation carpenter. Other things have under-
gone great improvements; but in the construction and
comforts of a Slave's cabin, there has been little or no
change for upwards of a century.

Clothing, especially in the more northern of the
slave states is an expensive item; but as its necessity
in those parts of the couniiy is the more apparent,
the good economy of furnishing a tolerable supply is
more generally acknowledged, and the suffering of
the slaves from deficiency of clothing, is probably
much less than in the more southern states, where the
mildness of the climate encourages the masters to
stint the allowance, and where the numerous deaths
among the slaves from quinsy, influenza, and pleu-
risy, are a proof how insufficiently they are guarded
against the sudden changes from heat to cold, to
"Which the whole climate of the United States is so

58

DKSPOTISM

liable. The children, till they reach the age of twelve
or fourteen, run about almost naked, being covered, if
at all, only by an unwashed shirt of tattered osna-
burgs. Their sufferings from cold must sometimes be
excessive.

Firewood is still so abundant throughout all the
southern states, as in most parts of the country to
have no exchangable value ; or to owe that value en-
tirely to the labor expended in preparing it. The
slaves are at liberty to take from the woods on Sun-
days, or by night, such supplies as they choose. Foi
the most part, they carry it on their heads ; though
sometimes on Sitnday, they are allowed the use of a
pair of oxen and a cart. To save steps and trouble,
if they can do it without detection, they generally
prefer to lay their hands upon the first fence they
come to.

Very different opinions prevail in different portions
of the southern states, as to the quantity of food
which it is necessary or expedient to allow a slave.
In Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee, where corn
and bacon are produced in great abundance, and
where their value is small, the slaves are allowed as
much coarse food as they desire ; and the plump con-
dition and buoyant vivacity of the children are an
evidence that they seldom suffer from hunger.

In Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina, where
corn is seldom worth above fifty cents the bushel,
some sixteen bushels of it is considered a competent
yearly supply for a slave, to which is generally added,
a weekly allowance larger or smaller, of fish or meat.

In the states further south, which may be properly
designated as the cotton growing states, where com is
generally worth a dollar or upw^ards the bushel, and
where provisions of all sorts are comparatively scarce
and high, twelve bushels of dry corn by the year,
without any allowance of meat or fish, or any thing
beside, is esteemed a large enough supply of food for
& working hand. Sweet potatoes, are sometimes serv-
ed out during the fall and winter monthB, instead oC

IN AM£BICa.

59

corn ; and on the rice plantations, broken or damaged
rice furnishes the chief suppiy of food ; but whether
it be corn, potatoes, or rice, the allowance is often
scanty enough; and the starved, shriveled, peaked
condition of the children upon many plantations, are
too evident proofs how cruelly they are stinted.

With respect to this subject, the following observa-
tion is worthy of attention. A certain quantity of
food may suffice to sustain life, and even strength,
yet not be enough to appease the cravings of appetite,
nor to stay or prevent the torme.its of hunger. Most
laboring men at the INorth, m\;ht probably live and
enjoy health, though their daily food were diminishf^
in quantity one half, or even more ; yet this is a sac-
rifice they would very reluctantly make ; and the cer-
tainty of life and health would be no sufficient conso-
lation for the gnawings of hunt,er, and the disquie-
tudes of an unsatisfied appetite.

It happens very Viri luckily, that the slaves in that
part of the country where they are worst supplied
with food and clothing, are yet subjected to the se-
verest and most unremitting labors.

In Missouri, Kentucky, North Carolina, Virginia
and Maryland, except in those limited tracts in which
the culture of tobacco is pursued, there are considerable
intervals in every year, when the labor of the slaves
is little needed, and when the tasks imposed are suf-
ficiently light. But the cultivation of tobacco, and
still more, that of rice, sugar and cotton, is an inces-
sant round of labor, from one year's end to the other.
These plants are a long time in coming to perfection.
The labor of securing the crop, and preparing it for
market, is very great; and one year's work is hardly
ended, before it is time to begin upon the next. Win-
ter or Summer, there is no rest nor relaxation frora
constant, steady toil.

On the whole, it may be stated that the physical
condition of the slaves throughout the southern states,
iis far inferior in every respect, to that of the imfortu-
nate men, confined for the punishment of their crimes

DESPOTISM

m onr Northern prisons and penitentiaries. Their
food is less savoury, less abundant, and far less vari-
ous, — and a certain variety of diet seems as essentia
to health as it is agreeable to the taste. The work de-
manded of them is far more fatiguing and severe, the
time of labor is longer, the clothing with which they are
supplied is far less comfortable ; and their exposure
far more trying. That sort of discipline which we
have fixed upon as the most terrible and exemplary
punishment of crime, — or rather a discipline much
more severe than that, — is the regular, constant, per-
petual condition of a large proportion of our fellow-
countrymen at the south.

What has >)een observed with respect to food, ap-
plies with equal force to physical condition in general.
That which is sufficient to sustain existence, is by no
means sufficient for comfort, or for pleasure. Life
iray be supported, and protracted under such a series
of privations that it ceases to be any thing but a con-
tinuity of suffering.

That the physical condition of the slaves is far in-
ferior on an average to that of the free, may be made
evident by some statistical considerations. During
the fifty years from 1790 to 1840, the white popula-
tion of the United States had a uniform increase at
the rate of thirty-five per cent in each period of ten
years ; while during the same time the slave popula-
tion increased at the rate of only twenty-nine per c^nt
In the period of ten years, from 1830 to 1840, while
the free population increased 34.6 per cent, the slave
population increased only 23.8 per cent ; a striking
proof of the alteration for the worse, in the condition
of the slaves, produced by their transfer to the cotton
fields of the far south. The increase of the white
population, by immigration from abroad, could not
have amounted, during those ten years, to more than
five per cent ; still leaving a balance of increase over
the slave population of more than seven per cent An
examination of the returns of the recent census of
1850 would afford results not materially different.

IN AMERICA.

61

Now it is to be recollected that there are certain

{)riidential checks, as they are denominated, constant-
y operating to retard the increase of the white popu-
lation. The extent to which these checks operate,
oven in those parts of the country in which the white
population increases with the greatest rapidity, will
be obvious, when it is considered, that in the state of
New York, as appears from the results of the State
census, in 1825 and in 1835, out of all the women in
th« state between the ages of sixteen and forty-five,
that is, of an age to bear children, two fifths are un-
married.

Among the slaves, these prudential checks are to-
tally unknown. There is nothing to prevent them
from yielding to the instincts of nature. Child-bear-
ing is stimulated and encouraged by the masters, and
so far as it depends upon the mere production of chil-
dren, the slave population ought to increase, two fifths
faster than the free. Instead of doubling once in
twenty-five years, it ought to double once in fifteen
years. If the increase is kept down to the former
level, it is only because disease and death are busier
among the slaves than among the free ; and as the
slaves escape all those kinds of disorders which spring
from luxury and over-indulgence, this greater mortality
can only be ascribed to greater severity of labor, and
to deslitution of the physical supports of life.

It is often argued that self-interest a^e is enough
to make the master attentive to the li^ and health
of his slaves ; on the same principle that he provides
corn for his horse and fodder for his cattle. But that
provident and enlightened economy which makes a
present sacrifice for the sake of avoiding a future
greater loss, however it may be generally recommend-
ed and applauded, is but seldom practised ; and he
who is familiar with the domestic management of the
southern states, must know that of all places in the
world, it is least practised there.

An anecdote is related of g, Virginian planter, who
discharged his overseer, because sufficient cattle had
6

62

DESPOTISM

not died during the winter to furnish leather enough
to supply the slaves with shoes. This story though
perhaps a little exaggerated, wiii s(;rve to give an idea
of the domestic economy of the south ; and he who
knows how many mules and horses yearly drop in
the furrow, through starvation, over-work, and the
abusive treatment which the slaves, emulous of their
masters, heap upon the only creatures in their power ;
he who has seen the condition of southern cattle in
the month of March, hundreds actually starved to
death, and those which are alive, a mere anatomy of
skin and bones, witii hardly substance enough to cast
a shadow, searching with feeble steps, and woeful
countenance, for a spear or two of withered grass,
wherewith to protract their miserable existence; he
who has seen these things, would not much care to
have his life or his sustenance dependent upon the
good economy of a management so utterly thriftless
and unfeeling.

SECTION VII.
77ie treatment of American slaves, considered as men.

There are^lfene people whose sympathies have been
excited upon the subject of slavery, who if they can
only b<: satisfied that the slaves have enough to eat,
think it is all very well, and that nothing more is to
be said, or done.

If slaves were merely animals, whose only or chief
enjoyment consisted in ths gratification of their bodily
appetites, there would be some show of sense in this
conclusion. But in fact, however crushed and bniti-
fifwi, they are still men ; men whose bosoms beat with
ll)e same passions as our own ; vrhose hearts swell with
the s^me a^irations, — ^the same ardent desire ro im-

IN AMERICA.

prove their condition ; the same wishes for what they
have not ; the same indifference towards what they
have ; the same restless love of social superi 'ity ; the
same greediness of acquisition ; the same desire to
know; the same impatience of all external control.

The excitement which the singular case of Casper
Hanser produced a few years since, in Germany, is
not yet forgotten. From the representations of that
enigmatical personage, it was believed that those from
whose custody he declared himself to have escaped,
had endeavoured to destroy his intellect, or rather to
prevent it ^om being developed, so as to detain him
forever in a state of infantile imbecility. This sup-
posed attempt at what they saw fit to denominate, the
murder of the soul, gave rise to great discussions
among the German Jurists ; and they soon raised it
into a new crime, which they placed at the very head
of social enormities.

It is this very crime, ike murder of the soul, which
is in the course of continuous and perpetual perpetra-
tion throughout the southern states of the American
Union; and that not upon a single individual only,
but upon nearly one iialf the entire population.

Coripider the slaves as men, and the course of treat-
raent winch custom and the laws prescribe, is an art-
ful, deliberate, and well -digested scheme to break
their spirit ; to deprive them of courage and of man-
hood ; to destroy their natural desire for an equal par-
ticipation in the benefits of jsociety; to keep them
ignorant, and therefore weak ; to reduce them if possi-
ble to a state of idiocy ; to crowd them down to a
level with the brutes.

A man, especially a civilized mari, possessed of a
certain portion of knowledge, and well skilled in some
art or science, is a much more valuable piece of prop-
erty, and capable of producing for his master a far
greater revenue, than a mere, two-legged human ani-
mal, witii all the failings and defects, and none of the
virtues of a savage. But if such a slave is more
valuable, he is far more dangerous, and far more dif-

04

PKSPOtISM

ficult to manage. To extort the services of such a
slave, by mere severity, would always be hazardous,
and often impossible. Drive him to despair, of which
such a man in such circumstances, is easily suscepti-
ble, and he might violently end a life from which he
derived no enjoyment, and court a death which offer-
ed him, at least, the pleasure of thwarting the hopes
of a too greedy master. With such slaves, it has al-
ways been found necessary, to enter into a sort of
compromise, — a treaty of peace, in which, if the claims
of the conqueror were largely provided for, some re-
spect has also been paid to the rights and the happi-
ness of the conquered. The claims of the master
have been commuted for a monthly or daily tribute ;
and what else the slave could make or gain, has been
relinquished to his own use. He has been further en-
couraged by the prospect of presently purchasing his
freedom ; or of obtaining it by the free gift of a mas-
ter well satisfied with his services.

But though such slaves are very profitable, they
are also, as has been above observed, very dangerous.
Put thus upon a level with their masters, in all that
constitutes the moral strength of men ; keenly sensi-
tive to the injustice that is done them, and to the un-
fair advantage that has been taken of their weakness,
—-they have ever been ready to burst into rebellion,
have sometimes succeeded in overpowering their mas-
ters, and have often maintained a long, a bloody, and
a doubtful contest.

All this is perfectly well understood at the south*
A slave who can read is valuable on many accounts,
and will sell for more money than one who cannot.
A slave who can read, ;vrite, and compute, and who
by reason of these accomplishments is able to fulfil
the duties of a merchant's clerk, is plainly far more
valuable than a mere field hand. One who under-
stands the art of printing, an armorer, an apothecary,
are evidently capable of performing more profitable
operations, than he who knows only how to handle a
hoe.

65

But well aware how dangerous such slaves would
be, the privileged order have preferred to sacrifice
profit to safety. In most of the slave holding states,
it is specially enacted that no slave shall be taught to
read. This inability to read, disqualifies them at once
for all the higher occupations. Some few are rudely
instructed in those simple handicrafts indispensable
upon every plantation ; but custom and public opinion,
if not the law, imperiously forbid, that any slave
should be bred up to the knowledge or practice of any
of the superior arts. Some publishers of newspapers,
in defect of white journeymen, introduced slaves into
their offices as compositors ; but the experiment wa^
pronounced too dangerous, and they were obliged to
relinquish it.

With the exception of those employed in domestic
service, and in the few mechanic arts above mention-
ed, the great mass of the slaves are occupied in agri-
culturei which, for the most part, is prosecuted in the
rudest possible way. This is a subject which will be
ttiore fully considered in a subsequent chapter. Every
thing is done by main strength, and under the direc-
tion of an overseer. The slaves are confined to the
constant repetition of a lew simple mechanical acts ;
and continually employed as they are in this constaht
round of stupefying labor, which is not enlivened by
hardly a single glimpse of art or intellect; thus shut
out from the means and opportunity of exercising their
higher faculties, no wonder that the soul falls mto a
deep and death-like slumber. Drugged with such a
stupefying cup, so artfully administered, the sold
murder if not complete, is closely approximated. The
man loses his manhood, and is a man no lohgef.
Those mental and moral capabilities which are his
pride and glory, fall into abeyance, and apparently
he dwindles down into something little better than
a mere animal.

The domestic slaves, being constantly attendant
upon their masters, and listeners to their daily con-
versation, cannot but pick up some crumbs of knowl-
6*

56

DESPOTISM

edge, and acqnirc a certain habit of reasoning and re-
flection. In c isequence of these accomplishraents
they are feared, suspected, and very narrowly watch-
ed. In all the towns and villages of the south, the
strictest regulations are established and enforced, by
which among other things, the slaves are forbidden to
leave their master's houses after an early hour in the
evenhig, and in many other respects, arc subjected to
a constant system of the most prying and suspicious
espionage.

Some writers misled by a spirit of patriotism, or de-
ceived by views too superficial, have represented the
system of American slavery as extremely mild, and
quite a different thing from slavery in any other age
or country. There is a difference it is true; but that
difference is not favorable to us. It is easy to show,
that in certain most essential points, — those fundamen-
tal points by which alone a social system ought to be
judged, — American slavery is a far more deadly and
disastrous thing, more fatal to all the hopes, the sen-
timents, the rights of humanity, than almost any other
system of r,ervitude which has existed in any other
community.

Slavery as it existed among the ancient Greeks and
Romans has been often referred to, as a system of the
extremest severity, cruel beyond any thing to be found
in modern times.* No doubt that system was bad
enough. It would be well however, if other systems
were not worse.

The Roman master had the power of life and death
over his slaves ; but the slaves, in this respect, stood
upon a level with the freemen ; for the Roman hus-
band and father had the same power over his wife
and his children, and he might claim and exercise it,
long after those children had passed the age of puber-
ty, and even after they had attained to the highest
honors and distinctions of the state. It is true that the
laws do not confer an equal authority upon the Ameri-
can master ; but it is equally true that the lives of his

• See Channing on Slavery.

IN AMERICA.

67

slaves are not the less in his power. It is easy for the
master to invent a thousand pretences for taking the
liie of any slave, against whom he' may have conceiv-
ed a prejudice. If he does not think it prudent to use
the pistol or the knife, he needs only to have recourse
to a somewhat more lingering process of torture, or
starvation.

But the great distinction between the slavery of the
ancient world and that of America is this. The Greek
and Roman slaves, in the estimation of their masters
and themselves, though slaves, were yet men. It was
true doubtless, as Homer says, that the day a man
became a slave he lost half his manly virtues. From
the nature of things it must have been so; but man-
hood or a portion of it, remained, though darkened
and eclipsed, still visible. To a certain extent at least,
in point of knowledge, accomplishments, and the de-
velopment of mind, the slaves stood upon a level
with the free ; and if there be something terrible in
the idea, — terrible because we need no preparation to
comprehend it, — of a city sacked and plundered, and
all its inhabitants, the noblest, the wealthiest, the deli-
cate women, as well as the hewers of wood and the
drawers of water, sold under the hammer of a mili-
tary auctioneer, and thence dragged into servitude, —
we must recollect that the accomplishments, the
knowledge, the refinement of these unhappy capti^res,
furnished also many means of alleviating the calamity
of servitude, and presently of escaping it altogether.

The Athenian captives taken in the unlucky expe-
dition against Syracuse, purchased their liberty by re-
citing the verses of Euripides. Slaves first cultivated
the art of Latin poetry, and introduced at Rome an
imitation of the Grecian drama. Such were Plautua
and Terence, and almost all the elder Roman poets.
All the arts which give comfort and refinement to life,
and the mere practice of v/hich confers a certain so-
cial distinction, music, poetry, literature in general,
painting, medicine, education, and many others, were
principally, or commonly practised by slaves, who

68

thus acquired favor, fame, freedom, and finally wealih
and social elevation. Horace, educated at Athens
among the sons of Roman nobles, and afterwards the
friend and intimate of the lords of the empire, and
the delight and pride of the Roman people, was the
son of a freedman. Emancipations were frequent
and were favored. The slave constantly had before
his eyes the hope and the prospect of liberty ; he thus
had a noble object for ivhich to live ; and although
there were in general, some political disqualifications
which he could not expect to shake otf from himself,
wealth, consideration, and all the more common ob-
jects of human hopes and wishes, were still spread
out before him ; and for his children — and men live
as much for their children as for themselves, — he had
every thing to anticipate.

Undoubtedly the condition of the country slave,
employed in agriculture, more nearly resembled that
of slaves with us. But still there was an opening for
talent and for hope. No slave was so low or misera-
ble, that he might not aspire to freedom and to social
elevation.

Under this system, there existed that compromige
between the master and the slave, which has been ex-
plained above. If the slave lived and labored for his
master, he also lived and labored for himself He
was secured by custom, which is stronger and moie
effectual than law, in the enjoyment of a peculium, or

f)roperty of his own. The relation of master and slave
ost to a certain degree, the character of pure despo-
tism, and approached towards that of lord and vassal,
patron and client ; while the frequency of emancipation
introduced into the relation of servitude, sentiments
totally opposite to those which naturally spring from
it. There were gleams of benevolence and of grati-
tude; there was a twilight of good- will. Compared
to a condition of freedom, it was as the gray morning
dawn to the brilliancy of noon. Compared to the
system of our own country, it is as that same raom-
iag dawn to the blackness of midnight.

69

It is true that we read of savage atrocities, exercis-
ed in those ancient times, by masters towards their
slaves. The Spartans, we are told, were accustomed
from time to time, to send out assassins who put to
death the boldest and most intelligent of the Helots ;
and it is undeniable that the frequent servile insurrec-
tions which took place in the ancient states, were sup-
pressed and punished by a series of the most dread-
ful cruelties.

But these fierce acts ought to be regarded as proofs
not so much of the degradation of the slaves, as of
an approach on their part, towards an equality with
their masters. No repose is so perfect as the repose
of absolute despotism. The unfrequent and always
trifling disturbances among the slaves of America fur-
nish palpable evidence how sunk they are. It is only
where a certain portion of liberty is enjoyed, that
more begins to be strenuously claimed; or boldly
sought. To him that hath, shall be given ; from him
that hath not, shall be taken away, even that which
he hath. Such servile insurrections as take place in
America, are faint flashes of folly or despair. The
insurrections of slaves in ancient times, were the
promptings of genius and of hope.

Had the Greek and Roman masters been the same
indolent, scattered, untrained, unready people as are
the American planters, such were tiie means, the
courage, the spirit of their slaves that they could not
have retained their dominion for a day. In those
times the free were all soldiers. War was their con-
stant study and pursuit. They lived too in cities,
ready to combine and act at a moment's warning.
Thus they were able, by constant preparation, and su-
perior means, aided as they were by the moral causes
above enumerated, to maintain their authority over
slaves, enjoying an intellectual equality with them-
selves. Under the Roman empire, the standing army
by which the emperors maintained their authority,
Berved also to hold the slaves in subjection. Besides,
the masters had a strong body of firm friends aad

70

DESPOTISM

allies in the numerous class of freedmen. The emanci-
pations constantly going on would soon, in fact, have
put an end to the condition of servitude, had not the
numbers of the enslaved been kept good by fresh im-
portations and purchases. When at length these im-
portations ceased, Biuvery in tc\«7ns and cities soon
came to an end; the slavery of the country was
changed into villanage, and vilianage ended at last, in
liberty.

To a certain extent, many of these observations ap-
ply to slavery as it exists in Brazil and Spanish Ame-
rica. However disastrous may be the social condi-
tion of those countries, it is not destitute of allevia-
tions. The slave is at least regarded as a man, and
is always cheered by the prospect and the hope of free-
dom. His efforts to obtain it by purchase, by gaining
the good -will of his master, or by other peaceable
means, are* encouraged by the laws and by public
opinion ; and if he attempt to qualify himself for the
more advantageous possession of it, so laudable an
ambition is approved and applauded.

In the United States, with all iheit democracy, there
prevails a totally different system. It is laid down,
as an indisputable maxim, that the freedom, the equal-
ity, the moral and social elevation of the servile class,
or any of its members, are totally inconsistent with
the dignity, the interest, the existence even of the
privileged order. That contempt, that antipathy, that
disgust which the degraded condition of servitude na-
turally inspires, is sedulously aggravated by the whole
course of education, and is artfally, though impercep-
tibly, transferred from condition to race ; and to crown
the whole, the idea is earnestly and industriously incul-
cated, that these suggestions of prejudice and igno-
rance, are the very innate promptings of nature.

In consequence, the natural sympathies of human-
ity are first smothered and then extinguished. The
privileged cease to consider the servile class as belong-
ing to the same scale of being with themselves. The
slaves in the estimate of their masters, lose all the at-

tributes of humanity. The kindest, the most tender-
hearted, the most philanthropic of the privileged or-
der, learn to be perfectly satisfied when the animal
wants of the servile class are tolerably provided for.
To make any account of their mental wants. — ^that is,
to entertain the idea that they are men, — is consid-
wJC** 2111 absurd, a misplaced and a fanatical tender-
ness, certain, if persevered in, to uproot ti\e founda-
tions of society, and to end in results indeterminate,
but terrible.

For the slaves are regarded not merely as animals,
but as animals of the wildest and most ferocious char-
acter. They are thought to be like tigers, trained to
drew the plough, whom nothing but fear, the whip, and
constant watchfulness, keep at all in subjection ; who
would take advantage of the slightest relaxation of the
discipline that restrains them, to break away from their
unwilling labors; and who if left to themselves, would
tjuickly recover their savage nature, and find no en-
joyment except to riot in blood.

Whether or not there is any thing of reason and
truth in these ideas, is not now the question. Suffice
it to say, that they are universally prevalent throughout
the southern states. They are the received, the author-
ized, the established creed. They are interwoven into
the very frame- work of society ; laws, customs, chari-
ties, morals, and religion, all are modified by them.
Doubtless there are men of reflection and discernment,
and men in whom a warm benevolence supplies the
place of reflection and discernment, who perceive more
or less clearly, the monstrous and extravagant absurdi-
ty of these popular ideas. But for their lives they
dare not whisper the suspicion of a doubt. To do so
would be high treason against the authority of the
privileged order, — an order as jealous, fretful and
suspicious as ever was the aristocracy of Venice ; and
as apt to punish too, on vague suspicion, without a
trial, or a responsible accuser.

It is plain that emancipation can form no part of
sach a system. In South Carolina, Georgia, Alaba-

73

DESPOTISM

ma and Mississippi, no master can emancipate his
slave, except .vith the express permission of the state
legislature, a permission not easily to be obtained. In
North Carolina and Tennessee, the emancipating mas-
ter must have the approbation and consent of the
County Court. In Virginia, he must remove the
emancipated slave; beyond the limits of the State. In
Maryland a similar law prevails, in Kentucky, Mis-
souri and Louisiana, the master still retains the righi;of
emancipation under certain restrictions.* But through-
out all the slave states, this exertion of power— the
only act of justice which the owner of slaves, in his
character of owner, is able to perform — is totally dis-
couraged by public opinion. • The emancipated class
is studiously subjected to mortifications and disabili-
ties without number. They are considered as noxious
vermin whose extermination is required for the com-
fort and security of the privileged order. They are
hunted down by legislative enactments as bears and
foxes are in other st: s ; and by depriving them of all
the rights of citizen ip, advantages of society, and
opportunities for labor, the attempt is made to ren-
der them if possible, even more miserable than the
slaves. These efforts have been to a certain extent,
successful. The condition of the emancipated class,
would seem to be wretched enough to satisfy their
worst enemies. Yet wretched as they are, still they
are envied by the slaves. What conclusive evidence
of the miseries of servitude !

Some few emancipations occasionally take place ;
but it is obvious that the value of the boon is exceed-
ingly diminished, by the miserable condition to which
the emancipated class is studiously reduced. As to
passing from the unprivileged into the privileged or-
der, that is a thing entirely out of the question. No
slave can expect it for himself, for his children, or
even for his remotest posterity. The feeling which
exists upon this subject throughout the South, is a
perfect fanaticism. In one or two rare instances, a
good-natured master has attempted to elevate his own

IN AMERICA.

73

children, bovn of slave mothers, to the rank of free-
dom. But in every such case, the penaUy of setting
public opinion at defiance, has been dearly paid. The
transgressor has been assailed in every form of ridi-
cule, and reproach; he has been pursued with the
most inveterate malice; has been overwhelmed virith
torrents of obloquy ; and held up to public scorn and
indignation, as a blasphemous violator of the decen-
cies of life and the sacred laws of nature.

Here is the point at which the slaves of the United
States sink into a depth of misery, which even the
imagination can hardly measure. What is life with-
out hope 1 All men of reflection, whether poets or
philosophers, have agreed, that life even in the better
aspects of it, if we did but see things as they are and
as they will be, would be a dreary and a worthless
thing. It is hope that cheers, supports, sustains us.
It is in the anticipation of future joys, that we are
happy. But what hope, what anticipations has the
American slaved His hopes are all fears; his antici-
pations, if he has any, are anticipations of suffering.
This is a state of existence which could not be endur-
ed by cultivated or reflecting minds. The slightest
gleam, the faintest and most uncertain glimmer, a
hope, a chance which to all beside ourselves may ap-
pear but the faintest, will suffice often to lead and
guide us on, through defiles dark and gloomy as the
valley of the shadov/ of death. But when that light
goes out, that glimmer ceases, that hope expires, what
shall save us irom the horrors of despair?
'7

74

DESPOTISM

SECTION Till.

Wealth and luxury of the masters, as it affects the
(^ndiiion of slaves.

It is a &ct "well worthy of consideration, that with
! the process of wealth and luxury among the masters,
the sufferings, the misery, the degradation of the slaves
have been steadily aggravated ; till at length, in the
wealthiest and most refined of our slave holding com-
munities, a point has been reached, both in theory and
la T»TacticR, beyond which it does not seem easy to go.

The mildest form of Anjerican slavery is to be found,
Hot among the polite and well educated citizens of
Richmond and Charleston, but amid the rude and
wild abodes of the Creeks, the Choctaws, the Semi-
noles, — tribes whom we describe and stigmatize, as
savages.

The indian slaves, aie in many respects, almost
upon a level with their masters. The wants of sav-
ii,ge life are few and simple. The avarice of the mas-
ter is not stimulated by the greediness of luxury. He
is content with a moderate annual tribute of corn and
other provisions ; and provided this be paid, the slave
is left at liberty to procure it as he pleases, and to em-
ploy his time and strength as he best sees fit. It thus
happens that an indian slave is sometimes richer than
his master; and if he have talents and ambition,
though still a slave, he may become one of the most
influential persons of the tribe.

The indian slaves are well aware how superior is
their condition to that of the miserable sufferers, who
labor for white masters, upon cotton and sugar planta-
tions ; and the dread they have of that lot, as well as
the influence they are able to exercise, may be clearly
illustrated by the case of the Seminole war. That war,
according to the statement of those best acquainted
with the subject, had the following origin. It was
not that the indians themselves had such serious ob-

IN AMSEICA.

76

jections to removal ; but as the time for the execution
©f the treaty approached, tlieir country was overrun
with speculators and adventurers from the states, who
came partly to set up claims, true or false, to certain
indian slaves, on the ground that they were runa-
ways, or the children of runaways, who had years
ego fled to the Seminoles for protection ; and partly to
set on foot a slave trade with the indians, who, it wps
hoped might be induced at the moment of their r«"
moval to part with their servants for httle or nothing.
The indian slaves were f«lled with terror and alarm
at this prospect of falling into the hands of white mas-
ters ; and it is believed to have been by their instiga-
tion and encouragement, that the Seminoles were in-
duced to resist the execution of the treaty, and to
commence the war.

The small planter, who can neither read nor write,
who has been bred up in poverty and ignorance, but /
who has wandered into some new settlement and has
earned by his own personal labor, the means to pur-
chase two or three slaves, next to the wild indian, is
the most mild and indulgent master. He works with
his slaves in the field, he converses with them and
consults them. If either of them exhibits any pecu-
liar shrewdness or good judgment, the master per-
ceives it, and avails himself of it ; and such a slave
often becomes his owner's chief confidant and adviser.

In his fits of drunkenness, or tliose bursts of passion
to which the rude and uneducated are peculiarly lia-
ble, such a master beats and abuses his slaves. But
he does the same thing to his wife and children. In
general he treats them with a certain degree of ten-
derness and familiarity ; and as they are always about
bim, by flattery, management and importunity, they
are able to carry a thousand points, and to secure a
thousand indulgences.

But as such a planter grows rich, and increases the
number, of his slaves, his feelings and his conduct
change with his condition. He appears in the field,
not as a laborer, but on horseback, whip in hand. He

16

DESPOTISM

begins to copy the airs and to imbibe the sentiments of
his aristocratic, refined, and educated neighbors. He
forgets the equal terms upon which he once Hved with
his slaves ; he feels himself transmuted into a being
of a superior order, born to be idle while they were
born to work. He ceases to have any sympathies for
them. He learns to despise them ; to hear their com-
plaints and appeals with indifference; and to push
them to labors, which when he worked by their side,
he did not exact.

Under this new discipline, and with the frugal
habits which he acquired in bis youth, this planter's
property rapidly increases. He becomes one of the
wealthiest men of the neighborhood ; and his son and
heir takes rank with the choicest aristocracy. Con-
scious of his own deficiencies in education and man-
ners, the father secures for that son, the best instruc-
tion he can obtain. He is sent early to school, and
perhaps to some northern college to finish his educa-
tion. He returns well mannered, and accomplished,
with the refinement of sentiment and the gentle bear-
ing which education and good company impart. The
father dies, and the son succeeds to the inheritance.
He has no taste for agriculture ; or if he has, he can-
not bear the constant annoyances of a plantation.
He leaves every thing in tho hands of an overseer ;
and is almost a perpetual absentee.

Every reduction in the allowances to his slaves, is
so much net addition to his own revenue. He is al-
ways in want of money ; and as he finds it less disa-
greeable to retrench the comforts of his slaves than
his own luxuries, the slaves arc soon reduced to the
merest subsistence. What are their sufferings or
complaints to him 7 He is not at home to witness or
to hear them. He leaves the execution of his orders
to an overseer. This overseer is desirous to secure
the good graces of his employer. The surest way of
doing so is, to make a great crop. For this purpose
the quantity of land in cultivation is increased. The
tasks are extended, and the additional labor necessan

IN AMERICA.

77

to their execution, is extorted by the whip. Between
this new labor and these new punishments, the slaves
grow insubordinate and discontented. The boldest
cvjd most enterprising take to the woods. They are
pursued with guns and dogs ; retaken ; mangled with
the lash, and loaded with fetters. These examples
terrify the others. They submit in silence. Order is
restored. The discipline of the plantation is spoken
of with admiration. The crop is unusually large-
The owner is delighted with the result, and urgent for
its continuance, and thus extortion and severity are
carried to their highest pitch.

At the same time that the physical comforts of the
slaves are diminished, all their moral qualities are de-
teriorated. Every bad passion is called into play.
That state of hostility and warfare in which slavery
orginates and consists, from being lulled, and half-qui-
escent, becomes open and flagrant. The masters learn
to hate the slaves, as fiercely as the slaves hate the
masters. Presently they begin to fear them. Fear
and hate upon both sides ! God have mercy upon
the weaker party I

SECTION IX.

Improvement in physical condition, as it affects the
condition of servitude.

Benevolence is one of those native impulses of the
human heart, which never can be wholly eradicated ;
and which may be seen mingling itself with actions
that proceed from motives of a totally opposite char-
acter.

It is plain that the whole system of slavery is in
violation of the dictates of benevolence ; yet no impar
tial observer, who has resided in the southern states
7*

78

DESPOTISM

of America, attempts to deny, that mingled with all
its wrongs and crimes, there may be perceived, in
many cases, much kind feeling on the part of the
masters. Indeed it is out of this fringe of benevolence
with which the dark garment of slavery is more or
less scantily ornamented, that most of its defenders
have woven the frail texture of their apologies.

This benevolence however is of a very limited char-
acter. It is confined almost entirely to physical con-
dition. It conforms itself to the established sentiment
of the country; it considers the slaves not in their
character of human beings, of men, but merely as
animals.

It is asserted that within the last twenty or thirty
years, as the tobacco cultivation has declined in Vir-
ginia, there has been a great amelioration in the treat-
ment of slaves. Many benevolent individuals have
exerted themselves to bring about this state of things,
by creating in the public mind a spirit of reprobation
against instances of excessive cruelty. It may be ob-
served in passing, that this amelioration in the treat-
ment of the Virginia slaves, is a strong confirmation
of the doctrines of the preceding chapter. As the
masters have grown poor, and have been obliged to
retrench their splendors and their luxury, at the same
time, they have grown comparatively humane.

The Kentuckians boast, that of all the American
masters, they are the kindest and the best ; and they
take to themselves no little credit, for the liberal sup-
ply of food and clothing which they bestow upon
their servants, and the moderate labor which they de-
mand.

This course of treatment, so much applauded by its
authors, is worthy of all approbation on the score of
domestic economy. It is aiso gratifying to the hu-
mane feelings of all those persons of sensibility, to
whom the constant presence of visible suffering, is the
source of emotions far from agreeable. But when we
coiisider the matter a little deeper, when we see how
this merely physical kindness operates upon the intel-

IN AMERfCA.

79

lect and the heart, we may well doubt whether this
sort of benevolence, however well intended, and how-
ever on that account worthy of applause, does not in
fact, greatly aggravate the miseries of servitude.

So long as men are constantly pressed by merely
physical wants, those wants absorb almost their whole
attention. The peculiar attributes of humanity are
scantily, or not at all, developed. They have the
form and the aspect of men, but in character they are
little more than mere animals ; and the gratification
of their animal wants occupies their total attention.

But so soon as these merely physical necessities are
satisfied, the mental and moral attributes begin to un-
fold them-selves. The passions bud and blossom ; the
feelings, the desires, the aspirations of manhood dis-
play their various forms and colors. If they might
bear their natural fruits, those fruits would be good
and wholesome. But crushed, withered, blasted,
plucked up as it were by the roots, their premature
decay evolves a deadly miasm, which poisons the
soul, corrodes the heart, and sets the brain on fire.

Let us consider this matter more minutely. We
read in ancient fables and eastern tales, of men trans-
formed by the power of magic into beasts. Here is
an operation of an analogous kind. Here are men
who have advanced so far as to feel that they are
men, whom law, custom, prejudice, and the potent
force of public opinion, confine to the condition of
mere beasts of labor. The more their humanity de-
velops itself, and the more conscious of it they be-
come, the more irritating and oppressive this condi-
tion must be. To be penned up, driven to labor, and
foddered by the hand of a master, — and what conse-
quence is it though the fodder be plentiful, and the
labor be light 7 — to be repulsed from that condition
of manhood to which they now begin ardently to as-
pire ; to be expelled from the circle of social emula-
tion and made mere counters in a game, of which
they so long themselves to be the players ; to be de-
spised, scorned, a"nd degraded into a fellowship with

80

DESPOTISM

the beasts they drive ; forbidden to indulge their na-
tural and irrepressible inclinations ; prisoners though
at large ; forever watched ; forever thwarted ; ag-
grieved still further by the constant spectacle of
privileges, enjoyments, objects and pursuits to share
m which they cannot even dream, but which increase
in estimated value, with the hopelessness of their at-
tainment; — what wonder, if in souls so beset with
grievous temptations, there should spring up and
grow, a fierce envy, a desperate hate, an impotent in-
dignation preying on itself, a dark, ferocious, restless
spirit of revenge, which delay irritates, concealment
sharpens, and fear embitters 'I What wonder, if all
the mild feelings which soften man, and make him ca-
pable of happiness himself, and of conferring happiness
on others, — are choked and blasted by a rank
growth of deadly passions ; and that he, who under
better auspices, might have been an ornament and a
benefactor to society, becomes a plague to others, a
torment to himself?

Such are the effects Avhich must inevitably be pro-
duced upon that sensitive and- irritable disposition,
the usual accompaniment of genius ; and the same
effects, to a greater or less extent, may be expected to
result in the case of ever^lave, whose -physical wants
are so far satisfied, that he becomes capable of reflec-
tion, and passes from the narrov/ circle of animal
desire, into the boundless amphitheatre of human
wishes.

Would it promote the happiness of our domestic
animals, our horses and our oxen, supposing them to
remain in their present external condition, to endow
them with the passions and the intellect of men 7 Who
will maintain the alfiimative of a proposition so ab-
surd? Yet the attempt to alleviate the condition of
slavery, merely by improving the physical condition
of the slaves, is an attempt, the absurdity of which,
if it be less obvious, is precisely of the same nature.

Keep your slaves pinched with hunger and worn
down with fatigue, and they remain merely animals,

IN AIUhttlCJA.

81

or very little more. They suffer it is true ; but they
suflfer as animals. There is a certain fixed limit to
their misery. It has its intervals of cessation. The
imagination has no power over it. What it is, it is.
The present is the whole ; for the past is forgotten,
and the future is not anticipated.

But satisfy their hunger ; put them physically at
ease ; give them leisure for thought, — and you create
new sufferings more bitter than those you have re-
moved. The man finds that yoke intolerable, of
which the animal hardly perceived the existence.
For two or three wants that you })ave relieved, you
have created twenty others, or cnused them to be felt,
wants incessant, unquiet, unappeaseable ; and for
these wants there is no remedy, — no remedy, while
you remain a master, and they slaves ! After the
sybil had cast two volumes into the fire, the third
remained, as costly and as precious as all the three.
In like manner, the chain of servitude loses none of
its weight, by parting with a portion of its links.
While one remains, that one is heavy as the whole !
Nay, heavier ; — and as it dwindles to the sight, still
it pierces deeper to the soul ; it frets and ulcerates the
heart. At first it only bound the limbs: but now it
penetrates, and with its mn|||^ous touch, tortures the
vitals !

It is a common remark at the South, that the more
intelligent a slave is, the more unquiet, dangerous,
and troublesome he is. The remaric is just. The
more intelligent a slave is, the more grievously he
feels the yoke of slavery. If a master then, through
indulgence towards his slaves, has placed them in a
situation of comparative physical comfort, so far from
having a reason for stopping at that point, it becomes
more imperatively his duty to go on. By doing what
he has done, he has sharpened the appetite for liber-
ty ; and this appetite which he has sharpened, is he
not the more urgently called upon to gratify ?

Let it not be said that this argument is no bet-
ter than an apology for a system of hard labor and

82

DESPOTISM iN AMERICA.

Btarvation, nor let any man so use it. God forbid !
Those are obvious cruelties; and so clearly percepti-
ble to the senses, that no man of common humanity,
however thoughtless and unobservant, can fail to per-
ceive them ; and no man of common sensibility can
bear to inflict them. I have desired to call attention
to sufferings of another kind — mental sufferings, — not
so obvious, yet far more excruciating; slavery's se-
cond growth, a rank and poisonous growth, more
deadly than the first.

I have desired to point to the slave-holder, the fear-
ful dilemma by which he is hemmed in. The moment
he ceases to inflict tortures at which his sensibilities
revolt, the moment he yields to those prayers for mer-
cy which his own heart re-echoes to him, at that very
moment he becomes the author of new sufferings ten
times more severe, than those he puts a stop to. He
irritates while attempting to soothe ; and the oil which
he drops into the wounds of servitude becomes a bit-
ter and acrid poison.

This is one of those cases in which all must be
done, or nothing. Half measures, palliatives, do but
inflame the disease. The only cure for slavery, is,
freedom !

CHAPTER SECOND.

POLITICAL KESULTS OF THE SLAVE-HOLDING SYSTEM.

SECTION I.
General Yiew of the Subject.

The great objects aimed at,^oT which should be
aimed at, in the political constitution of a government,
are 1st, Security, 2nd, Freedom, 3d, Eqitality.

Security has two principal branches, of which one
relates to the person, and the other to property. A
good degree of security in both these respects, is es-
sential to the comfort, and to the advancement of
society.

Freedom is either political or civil. Political Free-
dom consists in a participation, more or less direct, in
the appointment of magistrates, the enactment of laws,
and other public acts. Civil Freedom depends upon
the supremacy of the laws. It guarantees every citi-
zen against arbitrary and capricious interference. It
admits of no punishments except according to exist-
ing statutes ; and it allows the enactment of no law
founded upon any other reason than the public good.

Equality divides itself into three sorts ; 1st, Political
Equality, or the equal participation in political priv-
ileges, and the equal chance to enjoy political power; —
in other words the perfection of political freedom; 2ndj
Equality of property, or the most equal distribution,
consistent with security, of the wealth already exist-
ing, and the equal chance to produce or acquire new
wealth ; 3d, Social Equality, or the equal chance of
acquiring estimation and regard by the exhibition of

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DESPOTISM

amiable &nd useful qualities, or the performance of
meritorious actions.

Now so far as regards tlic unprivileged class of the
community, it is obvious at a single glance, that the
constitutions of the Southern States fail totally, in se-
curing any one of the above objects. They not only
fail, but they do worse ; they make a deliberate sacri-
fice of them all.

, This sacrifice is said to be necessary in order to se-
cure the well being of the privileged class. If in fact
it is so, it must needs be confessed that the alternative
is very unfortunate. The Southern people, if we al-
low this necessity, are in the unhappy predicament of
a savage tribe of which one half, in order to sustain
existence, are driven to kill and to devour the other
half. Before we can^dmit the necessity of any such
horrible experiment, every other means must first
have been tried, and must have failed. What should
we think of a tribe of savages who lived fat and com-
fortable upon the blood and flesh of their brethren,
without the slightest attempt to devise any other
means of subsistence ; and who repulsed with impa-
tient anger and bitter reproaches, the benevolent ef-
forts of those who would point out to them a more
decent and innocent way 7

It is clfear that so far as the unprivileged class are
concerned, the political results of slavery are most
disastrous. Slaves suffer at one and the same time-
all the worst evils of tyranny and of anarchy. The
laws so far as they are concerned, are all penal ; they
impose a multitude of obligations, but they create no
rights. The compendious definition of a slave is, a
man, who has no rights, but with respect to whom the
rights of his owner are unlimited. If the law in some
respects, seems to protect him, it is not in his charac-
ter of a man, but in his character of a thing, a piece
of property. Exactly the same protection which the
law extends to a slave, it extends to a dog, a horse,
or a writing desk. The master does as he pleases
with either. If any other person undertakes to dam-

IN AMERICA.

age, steal, or destroy them, he is an^iwer^ble to the
owner, and is punished not as a violator of pers<Mial
rights, but for having disregarded the laws of prop-
erty

Ti constant sac Ice of so many human victims,
amounting in severa tales of the American Union to
a majority of the population, — such a sweeping depri-
vation of rights as the slave-holding states exhibit, if
it can be justified at all, must find that justification in
some vast amount of good, which that sacrifice pro-
duces. This good must be principally sought for
among the privileged class. If it exist at all it must
be either political,-— by increasing the security, free-
dom and equality of the privileged class ; economical,
—by increasing wealth, comfort and civilization ; or
personal,~by its beneficial influences on individual
character. When Mr. McDuffie pronounces slavery
the best and only sure foundation of a free govern-
ment, if he has any meaning at all, if this declaration
be any thing more than a passionate paradox, — ^he
must mean to imply, that the political c<msequences
of slavery are of a kind highly beneficial to the mas-
ter ; in fact so beneficial to the master as to form a
counterpoise, and more than a counterpoise to all the
evils it inflicts upon the slave. It becomes then an
important question, what are the eflects which slave-
ry produces upon flie political, economical, and per-
sonal condition of the privileged class? And in the
first place of its pclitical results.

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DESPOTISM

SECTION 11.

Slavery, cts it affects the securiiy of ilie privileged class.

I. We will consider in the first place how the secu-
rity of property is affected by the institution of sla-
very.

Property is better secured in proportion as a greater
part of the population is made to feel a direct interest
in its security. The moral force of opinion in this as
in other cases, has an efficacy greater than law. Laws
uusustained by public opinion can only be enforced
by a great and constant exertion of physical power.

1. With regard to the slave holding states, a large
part of the population, to wit, the slaves, so far from
having any personal interest in upholding the laws of
property, have a direct and powerful interest the other
way. The laws of property in their eyes, so far from
being designed to promote the public good, and to con-
fer a benefit upon all, are but a cunningly devised
system by means of which the character and the name
of Right is bestowed upon the rankest injustice, and
the most flagrant usurpation. This attempt to mono-
polize the benefits of property, this system by which
a large portion of the community are not only depri-
ved of those benefits but are actually themselves con-
verted into articles of properly, has the necessary
effect to create in the very bosom of the community,
a state of feeling utterly hostile to security. Slaves are
universally depredators upon the property of their
masters. Such depredation they regard as perfectly
justifiable and even praiseworthy. It requires the
most incessant vigilance to guard against it, nor
will the most incessant vigilance always suffice. The
security of the slave-master is the security of a house-
keeper who knows that he entertains a gang of thieves
upon his premises, and who is in constant apprehen-
sion of being robbed.

Nor is this systematic spirit of plunder confined to

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87

the unprivileged class. It embraces also the large
class of free traders who gain their livelihood by a
traffic in stolen goods. It is these persons who offer
inducement for a large part of the depredations which
the slaves commit upon their masters. These depre-
dations, tUough small in the individual instances, are
enormous in the total amount. The eztrerae severity
with which the laws of the southern states visit the
offence of trading with slaves in articles suspected to
be stolen, and the terrible outrages occasionally com-
mitted upon this sort of offenders by planters who
think the inflictions of the law to be too mild, or too
uncertain, are a sufficient proof in how serious a light
these depredations are regarded.

2. By the institution of slavery, the slaves them-
selves become the chief article of property. Property
of all khids has a certain tendency to take wings to
itself and fly away. This is peculiarly the case with
slave property. In addition to all the other acci-
dents to which slaves, in common with other species of
property, are exposed, they have a propensity to im-

f)overish their masters by absconding. How frequent-
y this propensity comes into exercise, any body may
learn by examining the columns of the southern news-
papers. Of the slaves that run away, the greater part
arc recovered : this is true, but still the master is a
loser. He loses their services during their absence, —
often at the most critical moment of the crop,— besides
the expense of their apprehension and conveyance
home, including the reward oflered, which in itself is
often equal to half the money value of the slave.

3. Many slaves submit with great reluctance to the
station and duties which the law assigns to them. To
keep these unquiet creatures in due subordination, it
becomes necessary to wound, to maim, and sometimes
to kill them. This chance of loss takes away in a
certain degree, from the security of this kind of pro-
perty.,

4. We come now to a cause of insecurity of a m'^re
serious character than any yet enumerated. Property

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DESPOTISM

in slaves is not a kind of property generally acknow-
ledged. There are whole nations who deny that any
such kind of property ought to exist. All the most
enUghtened people in the world are precisely of that
opinion. Within the last fifty years, an effort has
been begun, — an effort which every day gathers new
force and earnestness, — for the total abolition of this
kind of property. The alarm which this effort pro-
duces among the holders of slaves is natural, and it is
great. An alarm exists at all times among slave-
holders, because there is always a certain apprehen-
sion lest the slaves themselves may reclaim their
liberty by force. But that alarm reaches an extreme
height when it is known that there are other persons,
over whom, the slave-masters have no control, who
sympathize with the slaves, and who profess the inten-
tion of using every moral means to bring about their
emancipation. Moral means is a phrase which slave-
masters find it difficult to imderstand. Force, violence,
is the only means with which they are familiar ; and
this means which they themselves so constantly era-
ploy, they naturally apprehend, will be used against
them. The degree of alarm thus produced, is suffi-
ciently indicated by the ferocity with which the per-
sons called abolitionists have been assailed by the
slave-holders, and by the savage barbarities exercised
upon such abolitionists, or supposed abolitionists, as
have fallen into their hands ; exercised generally upon
mere suspicion, and with hardly any evidence that
the sufferers were guilty of entertaining the opinions
ascribed to them.

Thus it appears that under a constitution authoriz-
ing slavery, one of the chief items of property, name-
ly, slave property, from its very nature, its total want
of any foundation of mutual benefit, is peculiarly inse-
cure; and this insecurity spreads to every other kind
of property, because the institution of slavery, by its
necessary effect destroys all respect for property of
any kind, in a large part of the population, and also
creates a vast number of depredators.

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89

II. We come now to that jranch of Security,
which relates to the person.

Here again the privileged class of a slave holding
community are beset with alarms and dangers. These
dangers and alarms are of two kinds, — dangers from
the slaves, dangers from one another.

I. Dangers from the slaves. The master retains his
authority only* by the constant exercise of violent
means. ' This violence is liable at any time to be re-
torted upon himself. The subjugation and cowardice
of those over whom he tyrannizes, afford the master
a certain degree of security. But passion often sup-
plies the place of courage ; and we frequently hear of
terrible acts of vengeance committed upon the person
or family of the master, by outraged and infuriated
servants.

But this danger is trifling compared with that anti-
cipated from a rising of the servile class. Every two
or three years the report of an insurrection, real or
imaginary, spreads the most frantic terror through the
southern states. The antics enacted upon such occa-
sions, would be in the highest degree farcical, did
they not generally terminate in bloody tragedies.
Men^ who are individually brave, and who would
march to the assault of a battery without flinching,
work each other into a complete paroxism of fear. A
single negro seen in the woods with a gun upon his
shoulder, suffices to put a whole village to flight.
Half-a-dozen unintelligible words overheard and
treasured up by some evesdropping overseer, or invent-
ed perhaps by some miscreant, who delights himself
with the public alarm, are enough to throw all the
southern states into commotion, and to bring nights of
agony and sleeplessness to hundreds of thousands.
But this is not the worst of it. When terror makes
cowards it always makes bloody-minded cowards.

Blood ! blood !^ — nothing else can appease the gene-
ral alarm. Committees of safety with the most abso-
lute authority, are every where established. On these
committees sit many a village Tinville, many a mstic
8*

90

DESPOTISM

Danton. Before these tribunals the unhappy victims
are dragged ; accusation and condemnation keep close
company. Hanging, shooting, and burning become
the order of the day. The headlong ferocity of these
proceedings betrays the greatness of that alarm which
produces them.

It has been shown in another place, that notwith-
standing the extreme degree of terror tc which the
apprehension of slave vengeance gives rise throughout
the south, the actual danger is by no means propor-
tionately great. Many causes contribute to this dis-
proportion, of which one leading one is, a secret con-
sciousness of the cruel injustice of slavery. Tyranny
is ever timid, always full of fears.

2. Danger from one another. In this case, the alarm
is less, but the danger is more real. Throughout the
greater part of the southern states it is considered es-
sential to personal safety, to carry concealed weapons.
This single fact shows that personal security is at the
lowest ebb. When a man must protect himself, for
what is he indebted to the laws 1 These weapons are
no doubt carried partly as a protection against the
slaves ; but they are chiefly used, in quarrels between
freemen. Of these quarrels the laws take but little
notice. In such a case it is considered the mark of a
mean spirit to appeal to the law. If I am assaulted
or beaten, it is expected that I stab or shoot the ag-
gressor. In several of the southern states it seems to
make very little difference, whether I challenge him
to a duel, or assault him without previous notice given,
in a tavern, or the streets. Murders are constantly
committed in this way. For the most part they go
entirely unpunished, or if punished at all, it is only
by a short imprisonment, or a trifling fine. They fix
no imputation upon a man's character. Persons guilty
of homicide are to be met with in the best society of
the southern states. If it be inquired what is the con-
nection between this condition of manners and the
existence of slavery, the answer is, that the imperious
ferocity of temper which the exercise of despotic

IN AMERICA.

91

power produces or inflames, is the main cause of the
existence and the toleration of an insecurity of person
and a recklessness of human life, such as hardly else-
where prevails in the most barbarous countries.

But even this is not the worst aspect of the case.
The panic terror which the rumor of an insurrection
produces at the south has been already mentioned.
That terror levels all distinction between slaves and
freemen, and so long as it lasts, no man's person is
secure. During the period of the Mississippi insurrec-
tion, or pretended insurrection, in the summer of 1835,
the committee of safety appointed upon that occasion,
by a tumultuous popular assembly, were vested with
ample authority " to try, acquit, condemn, and punish
white or black, who should be charged before them."
Ry virtue of this commission, the committee proceeded
to try a large number of persons, principally white
men, accused of having instigated, or favored the al-
leged intended insurrection. Many of those tried
were found guilty, and were hung upon the spot. A
great many others were cruelly whipped, and were
ordered to quit the state in twenty-four hours.

The case of Mr. Sharkey will clearly exhibit the
degree of personal security existing in the state of
Mississippi at that time. Mr. Sharkey was a magis-
trate, and in the exercise of his legal authority, he set
at liberty three men, of whose entire innocence of the
charges alleged against them he was well assured,
although they had been seized by the pursuivants of
the committee of safety. This gentleman was a plant-
er, a man of property, a large slave-holder, brother
to the chief justice of the state, — a person not very
likely to be implicated in a slave insurrection. But
his opposition to the despotic authority of the com-
mittee was considered to be plenary proof of guilt,
and a large party was sent to arrest him. Mr. Shar-
key had no relish for being hung upon suspicion ; so
he barricadoed his doors, built fires about his house,
in order that the darkness of the night might not con-
ceal the approach of the pursuivants, wrapped his

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DESPOTISM

infant child in the bed clothes to save it from the bul-
lets, loaded his muskets, and quietly waited the at-
tack. His left hand was dreadfully shattered by the
first lire of the assailants ; but he succeeded in killing
their leader, in wounding several of the rest, and in
compelling a retreat. By this time his friends and
connections began to collect about him, and a party
was formed in his favor. Had he been less wealthy,
or less influential, he would inevitably have perished.

SECTION in.

Slavery as it affects the liberty of the privileged class.

One of the chief branches of civil liberty consists
in the unrestricted disposal of one's property. There
are restrictions which are necessary; but the more
these restrictions are multiplied, the more is liberty
restrained.

By the institution of slavery, slaves become one of
the principal kinds of property ; but in the free dis-
posal of this kind of property, the slave-master at the
South is very much restricted. The "sacred rights
of property," as to which he is apt to be so eloquent,
with regard to that very subject-matter with respect
to which he considers them most sacred, are closely
restrained by laws of his own enacting.

To set a slave free, is certainly the highest act of
ownership ; the only one indeed which a truly virtuous
man ought to exercise; and certainly the last one
which a {^rson of any manly spirit would be willing
to surrender. But in the greater part of the southern
states, the master is deprived by law of the right of
emancipation. Here certainly is a most grievous in-
fringement upon liberty.

The right to improve one's property so as to increase

!N AMERICA.

93

its productiveness and give it an additional value, is an
essential part of civil liberty. But this is a right
which, as respects his slaves, the southern master is
in a great degree deprived. In most of the slave
states it is a highly penal offence to teach a slave to
read. Now reading and writing are essential to many
employments. These accomplishments, and others
which by their means the slave might acquire, would
greatly tend to enhance his value, by making him
capable of more valuable services. But the master is
not allowed to improve his property in this way. The
law interferes to prevent it.

Considering slaves merely as property, here are two
grievous infringements upon the master's liberty. B"t
consider them as men, and the infringement upon the
master's freedom: of action is still more intolerable.
I am deprived by law of the capacity to be benevolewt
and just. I am ready to confer upon a fellow being
the highest boon which man can give or receive : —
but the laws do not permit me to confer it. Perhaps
the slave is my own child. No matter ; he shall re-
main a slave to the day of his death, unless I can
obtain as a particular grace and favor, a special per-
mission to set him free. Is this liberty ? Is not the
servitude of the father as miserable almost as that
of the son 1

The authors of these laws have plainly perceived
that the natural dictates of humanity are at war with
the institution of slavery ; and that if left to their own
operation, sooner or later, they would accomplish its
overthrow. To perpetuate the slavery of the un-
privileged class, they have fettered up those senti-
ments of the human heart, which are the foundation
of morality and of all the charities of life. For the
sake of brutalizing others, they have sought to bar-
barize themselves.

Liberty of opinion, liberty of speech, and liberty of
the press do not exist in the southern states of the
American Union, any more than under any other
despotism. No doubt there are some subjects which

94

PESPOTISai

may be v ery freely discussed there ; but the same is
the case under ail despotisms. Any body may freely
discuss at Rome or Moscow, the merits and demerits of
American slavery. The only prohibited subjects are,
the plans of government and systems of policy upheld
by the pope or the czar. So at Charleston or Rich-
mond, one is at full liberty to discuss subjects having
no obvious bearing upon the political system and
social condition of Virginia or South Carolina. But
approach that subject, lisp the word, slavery ; dare to
hisinuate that the existing system of southern society
is not the best possible system ; assail ever so cau-
tiously the tyranny of the slave-masters; point out
ever so temperately the inevitable wretchedness of
the slaves, and you will soon be taught that despotism
is as jealous, as watchful, and as fierce, in America
as in Europe.

The discussion of this prohibited subject is not only
visited by severe legal peny ities, under pretence that it
has a tendency to produce insurrections, — the same
reason, by the way, which is given at Rome and Mos-
cow,— -but it is still more effectually suppressed by the
terrors of Lynch laAV, a system of procedure, which
in cases of this sort is either openly countenanced, or
secretly abetted by the gravest jurists of the South.

Not only is discussion prevented, but it is dangerous
to receive, to read, even to have in possession, any
book, pamphlet or newspaper which has been en-
rolled in the Index Expurgatoriusi of the slave-holding
Inquisition, or which, though not proscribed byname,
appears to treat upon the evils of slavery and their
remedies.

The United States post-office at Charleston was
violently assaulted by a mob, headed by the principal
inhabitants of the city, and a large part of its con-
tents publicly burnt, under pretence that among the
newspapers and pamphlets contained in it, there were
some of an insurrectionary character.

At Richmond a bookseller received a box of books
containing copies of a certain work compiled by a

IN AMERICA.

95

Virginia clergyman, to aid the Colonization Society.
It was principally made up of extracts from speeches
delivered in the Virginia House of Delegates in favor
of a project for the gradual abolition of slavery by
shipping off the slaves to Africa, broached shortly
after the Southampton insurrection. This book was
denounced as incendiary by the Richmond Com-
mittee of Safety, and by their order all the copies
were delivered up, and burnt in the public square.

In the District of Columbia an unlucky botanist
happened to have among his papers used for the pre-
servation of plants, some copies of a prohibited news-
paper. He was arrested, almost torn in pieces by the
mob, thrown into prison where he lay upwards of six
months, and it was with great difficulty that his ac-
quittal was obtained.

It is a curious fact that at the very moment at
which the Richmond Whig was assailing Louis
Phillippe and his ministers for their restrictions upon
the French press, tiie Journal des Dehats was defend-
ing those restrictions by the example of Virginia ! It
must be confessed that the French restrictions are per-
fect liberty, compared with the law and practice of
the southern states.

The Secret Tribunal of Venice, which received anon-
ymous accusations, and which proceeded to judgment
without notice given to the culprit, has been always
denounced as an institution the most hostile to liberty
that can possibly be imagined. Tribunals very simi-
lar, and in many respects much more to be dreaded,
exist throughout almost the whole of the slave-holding
states. They pervade the country and hold all the
citizens in awe. The punishments inflicted are of the
most dreaded kind, — death by the gallows or a slow
fire, banishment, scourging, tar and feathers. This
jurisdiction is known as Lynch law, and the accusers,
judges and executioners are generally the same per-
sons. As was the case with the Secret Tribunal, it
confines itself principally to state crimes, that is, to
such actions as are supposed to have a tendency to

DESPOTISM

overthrow the existing system of despotism. This
system of Lynch law which sprung into existence
among the barbarous settlers of the backwoods, where
no law existed, and which was invented by them as
a substitute for law, has of late been introduced into
the oldest and most civilized of the slave states, and
has been made to supersede the regular administration
of justice in a variety of the most serious and im-
portant cases. The terror of this tribunal is sufficient
to preserve a dead silence at the South, and to pro-
duce an apparent unanimity of opinion. There are
no doubt numbers who still entertain the opinions of
Washington, of Henry, and of Jeflferson upon the sub-
ject of slavery ; but no one dares in public or in private
to utter those opinions. No one known or suspected
£0 be an abolitionist,— and this word at the South ob-
tains a very extensive signification, — can reside or
even travel in the slave states without imminent dan-
ger. Such, under a system of despotism, is the lib-
erty even of those called free.

SECTION IV.
Slavery in its injluence upon Equality.

Equality it has been stated, may be considered under
three points of view, Political Eqmlity, Social Equal-
ity, and Equality of Wealth.

Political and social equality are essentially depend-
ent upon equality of wealth. The truth of this ob-
servation is confirmed by universal experience. Those
who possess the property of a country, have always
succeeded in obtaining the political power. Revolu-
tions of property have always produced political revo-
lutions.

Ijook for exximple to the history of England. So

IN AMERICA.

97

long as the wealth of that country consisted princi-
pally in land, and that land was possessed by a few
feudal and ecclesiastical barons, the whole political
power of the country was in their hands. Towns
having sprung into existence, inhabited by artisans
and traders, whose industry created a new species of
wealth, these towns presently attained a representa-
tion in the national legislature. Their influence at
first was trifling ; but it has steadily increased with
the increase of manufacturing and commercial wealth,
till now it has become almost predominant.

The history of France furnishes proof to the same
point. So long as the nobility, the clergy and the
magistrature, possessed the larger portion of property,
they found no difliculty in maintaining their political
superiority. But no sooner had the progress of events
thrown a preponderancy of wealth into the hands of
the tiers etat, than they began to devise means for ob-
taining political power. Hence the French Revolution ;
which, after immense struggles, resulted in putting the
government into the hands of the more wealthy pro-
prietors. The unfortunate adoption of too narrow a
basis led, in the end, to the present imperial usurpation,
which, however, could not stand for a moment, did not
the French property holders support it as a means of
defence against those who have no property.

If in the Northern States of the American Union
there exists a degree of political equality of which
the world offers no other example on so large a scale,
the equal distribution of property throughout those
states, is not less striking and remarkable.

It is an observation as curious as it is important,
that in countries in which industry is respectable, and
where the fruits of labor are secure, property always
tends towards an equal distribution. Everyman pos-
sesses as a means of acquirement, his own labor ; and
though there be a very considerable diflerence in the
capacity, the industry, the good fortune of individuals,
yet this difference has its limits ; and diversities of ac-
quisition are still more limited ; for in general the in-
9

08

DESPOTISM

dustry of the rich man is relaxed : he is more iiicHaed
to spend than, to accumulate ; while the poor man is
still stimulated by the desire of acquisition.

It appears then that in civilized communities, the
natural tendency of things is towards equality. In-
equality can only be maintained by artificial means ;
by laws which give to some individuals exclusive ^d-
vantages not possessed by others, such as laws of
primogftriture, of entail, laws conferring hereditary
rights and privileges; laws creating monopolies of
any and every kind.

If political equality be dependent upon equality of
wealth, social equality is equally dependent upon it.
Social distinctions which appear to spring from other
sources, rise in fact from this, and by means of this
are kept m activity. Blood and family are esteemed
of great importance, and according to a vulgar notion
which we hear every daj;- repeated, are said to afford
a much nobler and more respectable aristocracy, than
that of mere wealth. But the founder of every noble
family was first rici '^re he became noble. It is
his wealth transmitt . 'is descendants to which
they are principally inu ; for distinction. When
they become poor they soon fall into contempt. This
is so well understood that whenever a Marlborough or
a Wellington is raised to the highest rank of the peer-
age for services or supposed services rendered to his
country, an estate is bestowed by parliament, to ac-
company the iille.

Equality in general, may be resoh^ed into equality
of wealth. All depends upon that.

Now it is a fact clear and indisputable, that the ex-
istence of slavery in a country, is the surest and most
inevitable means of producing and maintaining an
inequality of wealth. This is not said with any re-
ference to the unprivileged class, who are to be regard-
ed in this view not as men, but merely as things.
Reference is had only to the free. Slavery necessarily
produces a great inequality of wealth among the free.

The method of this operation is obvious. The la-

IN AMERICA.

99

hoi of each individual, is as we have seen, the natural
arid origioal source of individual wealth. But when
a man is enabled to possess himself of the fruits pro-
duced by the labor of a large number of individuals,
to whom he is not obliged to make any compensation
beyond a bare support, his v/ealth tends to increase in
a vast and disproportionate ratio, over the wealth of
that individual who relies solely upon his own labor.

Moreover slaves are a sort of property much less
valuable when held in small portions, than when pos-
sessed in masses. Where four or five hundred slaves
are owned together, the doctrine of chances may be
applied to the numerous casualties to which this kind
of property is liable. The average annual loss and
gain under ordinary circumstances will be pretty regu-
lar, and may be made a subject of calculation. But
the owner of only four or five slaves may at any time
lose them all by a sudden disorder. They may all be
taken sick at the same time, and the crop may perish
for want of hands to tend it. They may all run
away together. The income expected from them is
thus liable to fail entirely, and tae poor man is con-
stantly thrown back in his attempts to accumulate, by
the necessity he is under of investing his gains, or a
considerable par*, of them, in a species of property
which when possessed in small quantities, is peculiar-
ly insecure.*

But there is another efiect of the existence of slav-
ery in a community, much more extensive and power-
ful in its operation. Wherever slavery exists, la-
bor comes to share the degradation and contempt of
servitude, while idleness is regarded as the peculiar
badge of freedom. But when idleness is general, the
great mass of the community must inevitably be poor.
In every country the number of those who inherit
any considerable portion of wealth, is small. Per-
sonal industry is the only resource of the great bulk
of the citizens. Where labor is honorable, it proves

• Sec Chapter TIL Sec. It. for additional and important reasons of
the tendency of slave-holding property to accumulate in a few hands.

100

DESPOTISM

to the prudent and industrious, a resource sufficient
not only for support, but for the accumulation of
wealth. When labor is not honorable, the mass of the
citizens rather than degrade themselves by submitting
to it, will be content with the merest subsistence.
Thus it happens that in countries in which slavery
has existed for a considerable length of time, the citi-
zens are divided into two classes, of which the first
and mnch the smaller, comprises a few rich proprie-
tors who at the same time are large slave-holders,
while the second class contains the great mass of the
free people, persons of little property, or none at all.

This was the state of society in all the republics of
ancient Greece, Those republics were constantly di-
vided into two parties or factions. The oligarchical or
aristocratic party, composed of the few rich and their
immediate connections and dependents, and the demo-
cratic party, as it was called, composed of the bulk of
poor freemen, headed and led on by some ambitions
deserter from the aristocratic ranks. The history of
ancient Greece consists for the most part, in the mu-
tual struggle of these two parties. In general, the
aristocratic party had the ascendency ; when the op-
posite faction came into power, it was only by a sort
of accident commonly of very limited duration.

This serves to explain a curious part of ancient his-
tory, to which we have no parallel in modern times,
namely, the frequent projects for an artificial distri-
bution of property, and of laws for the remission of
debts. It was clearly perceived by many politicians
of antiquity, that a certain equality of wealth was
absolutely essential to political equality. They saw
that the nominal equality of all the citizens amounted
to but little, so long as all the wealth of the state was
possessed by a few, and the great bulk of the citizens
not only had nothing, but were even deeply in debt to
the feAv rich. Hence the various projects for abolish-
ing debts, prohibiting usury, limiting the amount of
property which any individual might possess, and
making new and equal distributions of existing wealth.

IN AMERICA.

lOl

But these schemes did not touch the root of the evil.
So long as slavery existed, it was a natural and inev-
itable consequence that all property, however equally
it might at first be divided, should presently concen-
trate in the hands of a few, leaving the mass, idle and
poor, — poor, because idle.

The operation of the same cause is very evident
in the history of the Roman RepnbUc. A few patri-
cians were possessed of enormous wealth, counting
their slaves by tens of thousands, and owning almost
entire provinces, while the great bulk of the citizens
were in a state of the most deplorable poverty, depend-
ing for their support upon distributions of corn from
the public granaries, upon gratuities bestowed upon
the commonality by the ambitious rich, and on the
pay and plunder of the military service.

Such are some of the instances which history af-
fords, of the natural effect of slavery in concentrating
wealth in a few hands, and in reducing the mass of
the free to poverty and political degradation. His-
tory also furnishes instances of the contrary process,
by v/hich liberty has given a spring to industry, and
has thus operated to disseminate wealth, and to create
an intermediate body between the rich and the poor,
a body which with the increase of civilization and
knowledge, is destined perhaps to embrace the great
mass of mankind. About the tenth century of the
christian era the greater part of Europe was reduced
by a combination of causes, to a most barbarous con-
dition. A few great lords, who were in fact little bet-
ter than so many Tartar or African chiefs of the pre-
sent day, possessed all the land, the only sort of pro-
perty v/hich remained in existence. This land was
cultivated by slaves. The mass of the free population
depended for its support upon the bounty of the feudal
chiefs, which bounty was repaid by the constant at-
tendance and warlike services of those who received
it. The sole occupation of the free was, hunting and
war.

In this state of things we can discover no element
9*

102

DESPOTISM

of social improvement. What then has changed the
condition of Europe to the slate of comparative ad-
vancement in which we now see it 7 A few serfs
flying from the tyranny of their lords, founded here
and there, a little settlement. They built walls to
protect themselves from feudal aggression. In many
cases they resorted to some ancient city, a remnant of
former times, dwindled to a ruin, but which their in-
dustry helped to repair, and their courage to defend.
They applied themselves to the mechanic arts and to
trade. Gradually they amassed wealth. In these
cities slavery was not tolerated, and the serfs of the
neighborhood found first protection, and presently
citizenship. These cities thus founded and thus built
up, are the origin of that great class of merchants,
manufacturers, and industrious men, to whom Europe
is indebted for its present advancement, and on whom
its future hopes depend.

The same tendency of servitude to produce great
inequalities of condition among the free is as visible
in the history of America as of Europe. The insur-
rection of the slaves of St. Domingo had for its imme-
diate occasion a violent quarrel between the white
and the mulatto slave-holders of the island. While
these two factions of the free were engaged in a bloody
contest on the question of political equality, the slaves
seized the opportunity to reclaim their liberties.

Slavery produces the same effects in the southern
states of the American union, which it ever has pro-
duced in all the world beside. Several cases have
hitherto operated to retard, or to disguise these effects,
but they are becoming every day more and more
visible.

The poor whites of the old slave states have hitherto
found a resource in emigration. All of them who had
any spirit of enterprise and industry have quitted a
home where labor was disgraceful, and in the wide
regions beyond the mountains have attained a com-
fortable livelihood, and have amassed wealth by means
which however innocent or laudable, $ht\y could not

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103

employ in the places where they were born, without
a certain degree of self-abasement. But by a fatal
oversight, a most disastrous ignorance, thoy omitted
to exclude that great source of evil, the bii.er eflfects
of which they had eypericnced in their own persons ;
and that same train of causes is now in full operation
in Kentucky and Tennessee, Missouri and Arkansas,
which drove the original settlers of those states from
Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina.

As to the southwestern states, they offer no re-
sources to the poor whites. The cultivation of cotton
has attracted thither, and still continues to attract, a
host of slave-masters, and whole gangs of slaves. No
man can emigrate to those states who expects to live by
the labor of his hands, unless he is prepared to brave
that very ignominy, and to plunge anew into that very
social condition which makes him uneasy, and cuts
him off from all chance of advancement at home.

Political parties in the slave-holding states, within
a few years past, have begun to assume an aspect en-
tirely new, and one which gives fearful omen that
these slave-holding republics are about to follow in
the career of those ancient states, whose policy was
founded, like theirs, upon a system of slavery. TJiere
is already, throughout most or all of the slave-holding
states, an aristocratic party, and a party which calls
itself democratic. The aristocratic party is composed
of the rich planters, and of those whom their w;ealth
enables them to influence and control. The demo-
cratic party, so called, is composed in a great measure
of the poor lohite folks, with a sprinkling of ambitious
aristocrats for leaders. This miscalled democratic
party, — for it is in fact only a faction of the white
aristocracy, — ^by the natural operation of the slave-
holding system, is rapidly increasing in numbers, and
with the increase of its numbers, the social degrada-
tion and the destitution of its members will also in-
crease. Measures of enlightened policy are hardly to
be expected from such a party, even if it could obtain
power and keep it, which indeed is hardly to be ex-

104

DESPOTiSiVi

pected. Such is the force of habit, the power of preju-
dice, the invincible stupidity of ignorance that these
people seem incapable of perceiving the real cause
of their own degradation. They are apparently as
much attached to slavery and are as ardent in its
support as is the aristocratic party, thus regarding
with a blind and fatal reverence those very institu-
tions which crush them to the dust. The influence,
however, of such a party, composed of men, poor,
degraded, ignorant and ferocious, and headed by some
desperate Catiline of the aristocracy, may at times,
prove extremely disastrous, not to the southern states
alone, but to the whole union.

SECTION V.
Education in the Slave-holding iStaies.

That the state ought to provide for all its citizens
the means of at least that primary education which
consists in the knowledge of reading and writing, has
come to be a political maxim generally acted upon in
all civilized communities. Even such despotic gov-
ernments as Austria and Prussia have admitted this
most important article into their political code ; and
primary instruction is provided by those governments
for all the people at the public expense. This shows
the progress which the idea of equality has lately
made ; for equality of knowledge is a most essential
part of political and social equality.

The despotisms existing in the southern states of
the American Union, are almost wholly regardless of
this important political duty of general education.
We have already seen that so far as regards the un-
privileged class, the attempt to impart any instruction
to them, so far from being considered a duty, is de-

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105

nounced as a crime. There are also obvious reasons
why no general public provision for the education of
the privileged class has ever been established.

The privileged class consists, as we have seen, of
an oligarchy of rich planters, and a comparatively
large body of persons with little or no property. The
rich planters know the value of education, and their
wealth enables them to secure it for their own children
by the employment of private tutors, or by sending
them to schools and colleges at the North. The poor
whites, bred up in ignorance, have no adequate idea
of the value of knowledge, or of the importance of its
diffusion. The rich planters have no inclination to
tax themselves for the benefit of their poor neighbors.
Their wealth, education and influence, enables them
to control the legislation of their respective states ;
and perhaps they imagine that they shall best secure
their own importance and political power, by keeping
the mass of the free population in ignorance. The
same stroke of policy which they play off against their
slaves, they play off also against their poorer fellow
citizens.

What has been dene in a public way for the ad-
vancement of education in the southern states, has
consisted almost entirely in the establishment of" col-
leges, — institutions of but little use to the mass of the
population, and which are almost exclusively fre-
quented by the sons of the rich planters. For this
purpose money has been liberally appropriated.

It is true that in Virginia, South Carolina, and per-
haps in some other of the slave-holding states, a trifling
sum is annually appropriated expressly for the educa-
tion of poor children. But the very form of this ap-
propriation, which extorts from those who wish to
avail themselves of it, a humihating confession of
poverty, is an insult to those for whose benefit it is
intended. That aid which might be justly demanded
as a right, is made to assume the character of a charity.
Besides, the amount of these appropriations is so small,
and their management is so miserable, that little or no
benefit results.

DESPOTISM

The facts of the case then, appear to be these. Not
one of the slave-holding states possesses any thing like
a regular system of common schools, or has made any
provision at all worthy of notice, for disseminating
the rudiments of education among its citizens. In-
equality of wealth has produced, as a natural conse-
quence, inequality of knowledge.

This condition of things tends greatly to aggra-
vate the social and political inequalities which pre-
vail throughout the southern states. It is in vain
that ])eople who cannot read, boast of their political
rights. There is no power more easily abused for the
promotion of private ends, than the power conferred
by superior knowledge. A man who cannot read,
may be said to be politically blind. Those who see
may miss the way, but the blind, have hardly a chance
to find it. Nothing is more easy than leading them
into the pit, and thus making them the instruments
of their own destruction. It is the extreme ignorance
of those who compose what is called the democratic
party at the South, which incapacitates that party
from projecting and carrying through any real and
useful reforms in the social polity of those states, and
which converts it into the mere tool and stepping-stone
of artful and ambitious men, who insinuate them-
selves into its confidence, and then employ that con-
fidence for the accomplishment of their merely private
ends. In the nature of things, the aristocracy of rich
planters, as they possess all the wealth and all the
knowledge, will succeed, in the long run, in usurping
the whole political power. As might be expected,
South Carolina, the state in which slavery is most
predominant, is also the state in which the aristocracy
of rich planters domineers without control. Already
the doctrine, sanctioned by the constitution, of that
state, that every freeman is entitled to vote at elec-
tions, is violently assailed by the leaders of the aris-
tocratic faction. They insist upon a property qualifi-
cation. It is easy to see whither this doctrine will
lead, By the concentration of wealth in few hands,

IN AMERICA.

107

which is the natural result of slavery, the nuKiber of
those who possess the requisite qualifications will
continue to diminish, till at last the whole political
power concentrates in form, as it now does in fact,
in the hands of a little oligarchy of rich slave-holders.
But though the equality secured to all freemen by
the constitutions of the slave-holding states, is little
more than nominal, though the few wealthy and well
informed generally succeed in obtaining the political
control, and then employ it to promote their own pri-
vate ends, it is not, therefore, to be hastily concluded
that the constitutional rights of the poor freemen are
valueless, or that the loss of those rights with which
they are threatened, is not a thing to be most seriously
deprecated. Having a vote at elections, every free-
man, however humble his condition, is sv4re of being
treated with a certain degree of respect. If the mass
of the people are cajoled out of their votes, they still
receive for them a sort of equivalent, in kind words
and fair speeches. Let them be deprived of this title
to consideration, and the native insolence of power
would soon display itself, and they would be trampled
under foot with the same remorseless violence now
exercised upon the free blacks and the slaves.

SECTION VI.

The military strength of the l^lave- holding States.

The military strength of states lias ever been es-
teemed of the highest importance in a poUtical point
of view ; since it is upon their military strength that
states are often obliged to depend for their defence
against internal, as well as external foes. In this
particular the slave-holding states of the South pre-
sent an aspect of extreme weakness.

108

DESPOTISM

When all the inhabitanis of a coimUy have arms
in their hands, and are ready and zealous to meet and
repulse any invader, the military strength of a coun-
try may be said to be at the highest pomt, for experi-
ence has abundantly demonstrated how easy it is to
transform citizens into soldiers. But those citizens
who are capable of being transformed into soldiers
must be principally drafted from the laborious classes
of society. The hardy cultivators of the soil, when
driven to the dire necessity of beating their plough
shares into swords, have ever furnished the best and
most patriotic soldiers, — soldiers, who after repulsing
the hostile invader, have willingly resumc^d again the
useful labors of their former calling. Men of this class
composed those armies of the revolution to whose cour-
age, fortitude and patient spirit of endurance, we are
indebted for our national independence.

But in the slave states, these cultivators of the earth,
these very men upon whom reliance ought to be prin-
cipally placed in the hour of danger, would in that
hour, be regarded with more dread and terror even
than the invaders themselves. In case of a threaten-
ed invasion, so far from aiding in the defence of the
country, they would create a powerful diversion in
favor of the enemy.

When the French, in the first years of the revolu-
tion, marched into the neighboring countries proclaim-
ing "liberty and equaUty," they were received with
such good- will on the part of the inhabitants as en-
sured a speedy triumph, notwithstanding the superior
force arrayed to resist their progress. The events of
those wars placed in a strong light, the fact obvious
enough in itself, but which had not then attracted
sufficient attention, that the inclination of the inhab-
itants of a country is much more apt to decide its fate,
than the strength of armies in the field. When half
the inhabitants of a country wish success to invaders,
it is not easy to resist them.

Considering the odious light in which slavery is
now regarded by all civilized nations, it is not likely,

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109

in case the United States became involved in war
with any people of Europe, that any repugnance would
be felt on the part of the hostile state, in seeking aid
at the hands of the slaves. A lodgement being effect-
ed upon some part of the Southern coast, by an army
of respectable strength, and emancipation being pro-
mised to all such slaves as would join the invaders, a
force would soon be accumulated which the unassist-
ed efforts of the slave-holding states would find it im-
possible to resist. It the invaders were expelled it
would only be by troops marched from the North. In
such a crisis the fear of outbreaks on their own plant-
ations would keep the planters at home; or if they,
assembled in force to resist the invaders, their absence
would be likely to produce such outbreaks. When
a servile was added to a foreign war, betv/een the
rage of the masters and the hatred of the slaves, it
would assume a most savage aspect.

There exist, indeed, sufficient reasons for entertain-
ing the belief that an experiment of this sort was
projected during the war of 1812, and that nothing
but the fact that Great Britain at that time had slave
colonies of her own, prevented it from being carried
into effect.

The difficulty of raising troops in the slave-hoiding
states is obvious from the fact, that Massachusetts
alone furnished more soldiers to the revolutionary ar-
mies, than all the slave-holding states-united. The
obstacles in the way of raising troops in those states,
have greatly increased since that time.

The military weakness of a slave-holding commu-
nity was strikingly illustrated in the capture of the
city of Washington by the British in 1814. Could
such an army have marched such a distance, and ef-
fected such destruction in any of the free states ? To
that question let Concord and Lexington reply. Had
the slaves of those counties through which the British
army marched, been free citizens, had not Washing-
ton itself been a slave market, the British troops would
never have arrived within sight of the capitol.
10

110

DESPOTISM

Should the slave-holding states become involved in
a war, which it would be necessary for them to pro-
secute from their own resources, they would be oblig-
ed to depend upon a standing army levied from among
the dregs of the population. Such an array would be
likely to become quite as much an object of terror to
those for whose defence it would te levied, as to those
against whom it would be raised. It would not be
easy to disband an army composed of men destitute
of every other resource, but who had found in mil-
itary service a means of living at the expense of
others. It would be insisted, and with some show of
justice too, that the country was bound lo maintain
and provide for those to whom it was indebted for de-
fence and even existence.

One other observation will place the military weak-
ness of the slave-holding stales in a clear point of
view. They are dependent for all manufactured arti-
cles ujK)n foreign supply. Even the very tools with
which the plantations are cultivated, are furnished
from abroad. Every article of equipment necessary
to enable an army to take the field, must be imported,
and unless their agricultural productions can be freely
exported in return, they have no means whereby to
purchase, or to pay. The coast of the slave-holding
states is but scantily furnished with harbors ; all the
trade of export and import, centres at a lew points.
These points may be easily blockaded by a small na-
val force. The slave states have no facilities for
equipping or manning a fleet. In. a naval warfare,
half a dozen of the fishing towns of New England
might compete with the whole of them, and a strict
blockade of their harbors for threcdor four years, would
reduce the whole of the Southern States to a condi-
tion of the greatest distress. •

In point of miUtary strength the slave-holding states
are not by any means all to be placed upon the same
level. Such states as Kentucky and Tennessee where
the projportion of slaves is small, are very strong in
com|>anson with Carolina and Louisiana, where the
unprivileged class form a majority of the population.

CHAPTER THIRD.

ECONOMICAL RESULTS OF THE SLAVE-HOLDING SYSTEM.

SECTION L v"^
Effect of Slavery upon the Sources of Wealth.

The public wealth consists in the sum total of the
wealth possessed by all the individual members of
the community. Generally speaking a community is
wealthy in proportion to the relative number of its
members who are possessors of property. A few very
rich men may make a great show, and create a false
impression as to the wealth of a community ; but a
large number of small properties added together will
far outrun the sum total of a few large ones. The
pay of the officers of an army is very large compared
with that of the rank and file ; but the sum total of
the pay of the rank and file, far exceeds in amount
the sum total of the pay of the officers.

That the slave states of the American Union are
excessively poor compared with the free states, is con-
ceded on all hands. The slaves, forming in some of
the states, the majority of the population, are incapa-
ble of holding property. They are not the owners
even of their own labor, and of course they can con-
tribute nothing tofjie sum total of the public wealth.
The class of poor whites, including a large proportion
of the free population, are possessed of a very trifling
property. Almost the entire capital of the country is
in the hands of a comparatively small number of
slave-holders ; and of the properly which they possess,
a great p«>rtion consists in the minds arid muscles of
the unprivileged class, la free communities, erery

DESPOTISM

man is the proprietor of his own muscles and intel-
lect; bui. as thes-e commodities however valuable, are
not the subject of bargain and sale in the market, they
are not usually reckoned as property Compare the
tax valuations of the siave-holding states with that of
the free stt tes, and it will be discovered, that almost
the only kind of property, in the usual acceptation of
' that word, which exists at the South, is, the land, and
the buii'iir.gs upon it. Exclude the slaves, and the
amount of what is called personal property existing
in those states, is exceedingly small ; and upon exam-
ination it w'li be found to fall greatly short of the
amount of deot always due to the North and to Eu-
rope.

In. estimating the actual wealth of the slave-hold-
ing states, the amount of this debt ought always to be
taken into account. A great part of the banking capi-
tal of those states is borrowed ; and so of the money
invested in rail-roads and other public works. A
large proportion of the planters have beside great pri-
vate debts of their own, secured by mortgage upon
their plantations and slaves, many of them being lit-
tle better than tenants at will to some northern capi-
talist, to whom all their property in fact belongs.

As the Southern States possess advantages of soil
and climate peculiar to themselves, it becomes an in-
teresting inquiry, what is the cause of this compara-
tive poverty 1

1. Political economists have generally agreed that
labor is the sole source of wealth. Whether this doc-
trine be literally and absolutely true, may perhaps be
doubted ; it is however beyond all doubt, that labor
is a very principal source of valu^

The great motive to labor, the great inducement to
exertion, that motive, that inducement which has
raised man from the primitive barbarism of the woods
' to such degrees of refinement and civilization as have
yet been attained, has been, expeciatioii of reward.
There is in this motive a sort of creative power, which
teems to give new strength and alacrity. li even

m AMKKICA.

113

possesses the capacity of making labor delightful The
only other motive pov/erful enough to overcome the
natural indolence of man, is the /(?ar of punishment;
but that is a melancholy and miserable motive which
seems to add a new distastefulness to labor, and to
wither up the energies of those whom it influences.

Now with respect to the whole unprivileged class,
that is to say the principal laboring class in the slave-
holding states, their only motive to industry, is this
second, this enfeebling' motive, the fear of punishment.
Their labor is compulsive and reluctant, and its results
are proportion ably small.

With respect to the other laboring class at the south,
to wit, the poor whites, their industry is paralyzed by
a fatal prejudice which regards manual labor as the
badge of a servile condition, and therefore as disgrace-
ful, — a prejudice which not even the expectation of
reward is strong enough to overcome. It is a preju-
dice similar to this which has operated in no small
degree to keep Spain in a stationary state, two centu-
ries behind the civilization of the rest of Europe. But
even Spain in this respect, is more foilunate than the
American slave holding states. It is the mechanic
arts which the Spaniards regard as derogatory,
whereas agriculture is comparatively respectable. In
the slave holding states of America, agricultural labor
is the most derogatory of all, because the labor of the
field most assimilates the condition of a freeman to
that of a slave. Whenever such notions prevail, they
are fatal to public prosperity. Poverty keeps pace
with pride.

Take the slave-holding states together, and the free
inhabitants are about twice as numerous as the slaves.
Yet all the great articles of production in which the
wealth of the slave-holding states consists, cotton, to-
bacco, rice, sugar and flour, are produced almost ex-
clusively by slave labor.

What then is the occupation of the free ? One class,
the larger slave-masters, contribute absolutely nothing
to the public stock. They hardly bestow a thoaght

to*

114

DESPOTISM

even upon the management of their own estates.
Their sole business is, to receive the income and to
spend it. Another class of the free population ob-
tain a livelihood by acting as overseers or viceroys
for their richer neighbors. They are thus saved from
the degradation of manual labor ; but it is a hard ser-
vice by which they earn their bread. So hard, that it
is very seldom performed to the satisfaction of their
employers. The planters give a terrible character of
the overseers as a class. According to their account,
the overseers as a general rule, are ignorant, stupid,
obstinate, negligent, drunken and dishonest. For
their ignorance they are hardly to blame, considering
what scanty means of education this class enjoy.
Stupidity and obstinacy are the natural fruits of igno-
rance. Negligence and drunkenness they learn from
their employers ; and if overseers are dishonest it is
little to be wondered at, considering the temptationa
and opportunities by which they are surrounded, and
the total confusion of all ideas of right and wrong,
justice and injustice, which the nature of their employ-
ment is likely to produce.

The third and largest division of the privileged
class, compelled by absolute want to the disgraceful
necessity of manual labor, work with an unwilling-
ness as great as that of the slaves, and with still less
of efficiency. The produce of their labor is very small.
In general it is hardly sufficient to support them in
that rude and semi-barbarous condition to which they
have been accustomed.

The disastrous effects of slave-holding upon free
industry, are particularly obvious in the families of
the small planters, and of those farmers who possess
but five or six slaves. These slaves suffice to perform
the labors of the farm, and when the land is fertile
the owner of it lives in a rustic plenty. A family of
sons grows up around him. He has no occasion for
their assistance on the farm, and if he had, they would
regard the labor as an intolerable disgrace. The boys
grow up in idleness, with little or no education, be-

IN AMERICA.

115

cause there is no system of public instruction, and the
father cannot afford to send them to a distance in pur-
suit of schools. They arrive at man's estate without
having been bred to any regular employment. Each
has his horse, his dog and his gun ; and while the father
lives the sons have a home ; they spend their time in
hunting, or in riding about the country, or at horse-
races, frolics, barbecues, or political meetings. There
are thousands of young men in Kentucky and Tennes-
see in this unhappy predicament. Full of spirit and
ambition, active, capable, eager for some honorable
employment; but condemned by the social system of
which they form a part, and by the unhappy prejudi-
ces against useful industry which that system engen-
ders, to an idleness which presently becomes as irk-
some to themselves, as it is fatal to the public pros-
perity. When habit has made indolence inveterate,
and when they are too old to apply themselves with
zeal or success to a new course of life, the death of
the father cuts off the support they have hitherto en-
joyed. His property divided among a numerous fam-
ily, gives but a pittance to each. That pittance is
soon spent. Want stares the unhappy sufferers in the
face. They lose by degrees their standing and re-
spectability. The weaker f.pirited among them sink
down to the lowest depths of poverty and vice. Those
of more energy emigrate to the new states of the ar
west, and having escaped the charmed circle in which
they were so long bound up, they develop a new
character, and like their fathers before them, by means
of their own personal industry, they bring a farm into
cultivation and gradually acquire wealth. But if they
have settled in a slave state, that wealth is generally
invested in slaves ; and their own children are bred
up in that same style of helpless indolence of which
they themselves were so near becoming the victims,
and which their children perhaps will not so fortunate-
ly escape.

Thus it appears that one plain and obvious effect of
the slave-holding cystem is, to deaden in every class

116

DESPOTISM

of society that spirit of industry essential to the in-
crease of public weahh.

2. The spirit of industry is not however alone siif •
ficient for the accumulation of property. Industry
quickens production ; hnt to accumulate, it is neces-
sary not only to produce but to save. Economjj then,
may justly be regarded as the second great source of
public wealth.

But to expect any thing like f conomy from the un-
privileged class, would be extremely ridiculous. Econ-
omy is like industry, it is like every other virtue, — it
never will be exercised unless there is a motive con-
stantly operating to produce it. Now in the condition
of servitude no such motive exists. In fact, the mo-
tives are all the other way. The slave receives from
his master a certain weekly allowance of food. Any
attempt to lay by a part of it, would be absurd, for
as soon as a store was accumulated, the master, if he
discovered it, would stop the allowance till that store
was consumed ; or at all events, he W3uld immediate-
ly diminish an allowance which experience had shown
to be more than sufficient. It would be the same with
respect to clothing. But why dwell upon this topic ?
Is it not plain that he who is incapable of possessing
property is alike destitute of motives to produce or to
save 7

If slaves are improvident with respect to themselves,
it is not remarkable that they are still more so with
respect to their owners. No matter what occurs ; if
the cotton house is on fire ; if the fences are down,
and the cattle destroy the com ; if the horses stray
away ; if the tools are lost or broken : it there hap-
pens one or all the thousand accidents which are al-
ways liable to diminish the value of their master's
roperty, and which a little care or foresight might
ave prevented, — any or all r.f these occurrences are
a matter of perfect unconcern to the slave, nor will he
voluntarily lift a finger to prevent them. If indeed he
has any feeling about the matter, it is rather an in-
elination to destroy than to save. He experiences a

IN AMERICA.

117

secret delight, in the losses and sorrows of a master
■whom he hates.

Nor is economy likely to be practised to any con-
siderable extent by the hireling overseers to whom the
management of the great plantations is intrusted.
- These overseers are frequently changed, and they
hav« little or no interest in the economical manage-
ment of the property intrusted to their charge.

As little can we look to the conduct of the slave-
masters for any exhibition of the virtue now imder
consideration. It is an old observation that what
comes easy goes easy. This saying is verified by the
conduct of brigands, pirates, and robbers, and all
that class of men who live upon plunder. It applies
with equal force and for the same reason, to slave-
masters, who generally contrive to spend all they get
and to run into debt all they can.

We have thus seen that with respect to the slaves
and their owners, idleness and improvidence keep
close company. The same is the fact with respect to
the poorer class of freemen. Though their resources be
next to nothing, they still contrive to imitate in their
small way, the careless extravagance of their richer
neighbors.

It thus appears that there is a great deficiency of
the second principal source of pubUc wealth, to wit,
economy, among all classes of the population of the
slave-holding states of America.

3. A third great source of public wealth consists in
inveniion, by which is meant, the discovery of new
and more productive appli ations of industry. But to
call this great means of increasing the productive
power of a community into action, industry must be
honorable. That ingenuit y which busies itself in ob-
servations and experiments for the discovery of means
to produce the same effect with less labor, seldom
displays itself except in communities in which the
useful arts are held in high esteem. Even inventions
made elsewhere, are for the most part brought into
i^se with great difficulty, in those societies in which

118

DESPOTISM

mea of education and reflectioa, if such there are,
despise useful industry, and in which the great busi-
ness of production is intrusted to ignorant and stupid
slaves, and to overseers equally ignorant and stupid.
Under these circumstances every thing proceeds in the
same dull round, without change or attempt at im-
provement. The more men know, and the more they
reflect, the more convinced they are how limited is
the actual extent of their progress. Ignorance is arro-
gant, dogmatical, certain that it knows every thing
already. The idea of improvement does not enter into
all its thoughts. Hence it is that the early progress
of a people from barbarism to civilization takes place
by such hardly perceptible steps, and is subjected to
so many hindrances and interruptions, as almost to
diKJOurage the most sanguine believers in human per-
fectibility, and to have given rise to the common
opinion that savage nations are incapable of being
civilized ; while on the other hand, the history o*" our
own age serves to show, how civilization, once set
fairly in motion, advances Avith an impulse continu-
ally accelerated, and which not even the most serious
obstacles can long retard.

The southern states derive no inconsiderable advan-
tage from their close and intimate connection with the
free states of the north, of which tne social system ia
so essentially different. By this means the natural
effect of the institutions of the south, are to a certain
extent counteracted, especially in those newly settled
states into which there has been a considerable influx
of northern population.

IN AMIKRICA,

119

SECTION n. ,t{r-

Slavery as U affects th^ ammint of capital required
for iAtdustrUms undertakings.

All enterprises of industry, whether agricultural,
mechanical or mercantile, require a certain amount of
capital for, their successful prosecution. Every thing
which enables these enterprises to be carried on with
a less amount of capital, contributes to the increase o£
national wealth: and on the other hand, every thing
which causes a greater amount of capital to be re-
quired, is an obstacle in th|^ way of alL ajgAmder-
takings. **** *V

In free communities, where the laborers have their
own labor at their own disposal, and where in conse-
quence, they are ready to sell it, either by the day,
the year, or the hour, in any quantities, that is, in
which it may be needed, beside the fixed capital in-
vested in lands, workshops, tools, ships, steamboats,
&c., there are required two separate portions of floating
capital, one to be invested in the stock to be operated
upon, and the other to be employed in paying the
wages of labor. But no more labor need be paid for
than is actually employed. Whenever a smaller quan-
tity will answer, a portion of the laborers may be dis-
missed ; whenever more is needed, more laborers may
be employed.

But in a slave-holding community, in addition to
these three portions of capital, another and a very
large portion is required, in order to commence any
industrious enterprise whatever ; for though in such
a community there is no payment of wages, yet a
corresponding quantity of capital is necessary to fur-
nish food, clothing, and medicines for the slaves. A
fourth and additional portion of capital is also required,
to be invested in ike purchase of the laborers them'
sehesy — a necessity which constitutes a great obBtacle
in the wzy of all industrious enterprises.

m

DESPOTISM

Take the business of agriculture for example. In
the new cotton-growing states, a very small sum of
money will suffice to purchase a plantation of several
hundred acres; but a very large sum of money is
needed to purchase the laborers necessary to carry on
the cultivation of it. Could laborers be hired by the
month or the day, as in free communities, a moderate
capital would enable the planter to command the labor
he would need, whereas, under existing circumstances,
no person can start a new plantation in Alabama or
Mississippi, who is not already possessed of a large
capital, or able to command it in the shape of loans.

We shall fall, probably, much under the mark, if
we assn|A that a capital of five thousand dollars in-
vested ^mired labor, would enable as many acres to
be cultivated, as a capital of fifty thousand dollars
invested in slave labor. The consequence of this
state of things is obvious. It gives a monopoly of
the command of labor to <hose who are already pos-
sessed of large means, either in the shape of property
or of credit. Persons of small capital have no chance
to compete with persons of large capital, because by
this system, a large capital is rendered absolutely
necessary to obtain that command of labor without
which no industrious enterprise can be carried on.
This single fact is sufficient to explain that tendency of
the wealth of a slave community to concentrate in a few
hands, which has been stated in a preceding chapter.

This system not only gives a monopoly of the com-
mand of labor to those who are already rich, but it
is also a very wasteful and extravagant system. It
compels the operator to purchase and to support a
much larger number of laborers than he ordinarily
has occasion for. He is obliged constantly to own
and to feed the largest number ever necessary in his
business, or else to submit, occasionally, to severe loss,
for want of a sufficiency of labor. In the cotton
planting business, for instance, a given number of
slaves can cultivate a considerably larger quantity of
cotton than they can gather in ; so that the planter i«

t. oilier obliged to submit to jSLii animal Urn of » poi^li
of the crop which he has brought to JBnatuiity, «»f f If^
1^ cuitivatb less than he othj^iwise might, th^'fiake
of gathering all. *'

The cotton crop, however, as it extends the labqr
of cultivation and gathering in, through almost th®
entire year, is less surely atteaded with this sort of
loss, than are the grain crops and farm cultivation
the more northern slave-holding states. In those states,
during the winter, there is comparatively little occasioii
for labor on the farms. During all that time, tiie capi«
tal invested in the ownership of sieves, is unproductive,
and the slave -master is saddled in addition with the
expense of supporting laborers, for whose services h»
has no occasion.

What a great discouragement to tbe pooi, that is, tf»
the great mass of the free population, this system pre-
sents, will be evident from a few considerations. lo
those parts of the slave states in which slavery pje-
dominates, it is impossible to hire free laborers. To
work at all, even on one's own little tract of land, i$
coasiderod a sufficient degradation ; but to work for
another person, to put one's self mm£ his direction^
seems to approach too near to the condition of slavery,
to be at all endurable. If a person, therefore, wishes to
employ any oUier labor than his own, he must have re*
course to slave labor. But the employment of die labor
of other people is in general absolutely essential to thi^
accumulation of wealth. Where a man merely hoards
up.the profits of his own labor, his wealth increases only
as money doe-s when placed at simple interest, and
the industry and economy of a long life will accuma*
late but a moderate sum. But if those profits are in-
vested in the employment of the labor of other people,
his wealth then increases like money at compound
interest.

But when to employ other labor than one's own, it
is necessary to buy the laborers, a considerable sum
must be first accumulated, before it can be employed
at all ; and as has been shown in another place, so

DESPOTISM

long as the number of slaves which a person possesses,
is small, the investment is exceedingly precario7is.

The necessity of a great capita!, and the wasteful-
ness with which that capital is otnpioyed, sufficiently
explain the fact, why in ail those occupations in which
the industry of the free states has come into competi-
tion Tnth the labor of slaves, the free states have been
able to undersell their rivals. Slave labor is only
profitably employed in those kinds of business, such
as the cultivation of cotton, rice, and sugar, in which
the climate and soil of the northern states prevent
the people of those states from engaging. In the cul-
tivation of grain, the raising of stock, and all the
operaiions of farming agriculture, the profits of the
slave-holding cultivators are notoriously small, and
many a large slave-holder grows poor in that same
pnrsuit, which enriches the farmer of Ohio, Pennsyl-
vania and New York, who begins life with no other
resource than his own capacity to labor. Hence that
heavy drain of emigration, hence that fatal domestic
slave trade, which aggravates the poverty of the older
of Uie slave states, by carrying off that labor, which
constitutes the principal means of economical pros-
perity.

This same necf ^sity for a great capital, m order to
undertake any industrious enterprise, and the same
necessary wastefulness in the employment of that capi-
tal, afford also one reason among many others, why it
has been found unprofitable to set up manufacturing
establishments at the south. It is not only neces'.nry
to build your factory, and to buy your machinery and
stock, but before you can commence operations, you
must expend a still larger sum in the purchase of
laborers. Apart from everything else, a sufficient rea-
son for the non-establishment of manufactures at the
South, is to be found in the fact, that at the North, the
same annual quantity of manufactured products can
be turned out, with the employment of much less than
haif the amount of capital, which would be necessary
for the same purpose at the South.

IN AMSEIOA.

SECTION IIL

Agricultttre in the Siave-holding States.

If we may believe John Taylor of Caroliae, the
author of Araior, or Mr. Ruffin, the ingenious editor
of the Virginia Farmers^ Register^ the best agricul-
tural period'cai ever publish^ in the United States,
agriculture at the South does not consist so much in
cultivating land, as in killing it. The process is as
follows.

A quantity of virgin soil, in those of the slave states
in which any such soil is yet to be found, is clearffd
up every winter. The trees are cut down and burnt,
or merely girdled, and left to decay and fall with the"
lapse of time. When tobacco is the crop, this fresh
land is planted with tobacco each successive year till
its fertility is exhausted. When it will no longer pro^
dace tobacco, it is planted with com or wheat, till
will not afford a crop worth gatherir It is then
turned out, that is, left unfenced and uncultivated, to
grow up with thickets of sassafras or persimmcoi
bushes, or with forests of the short-leaved pine, — a
majestic tree in appearance, but the timber of which
is subject to so rapid a decay, as to be of little or no
value.

In the cotton-growing states, com and cotton are
planted alternately, till the land is completely worn
out. When its original fertility is exhausted, no fu^
ther attempt is made at its cultivation. It is turned
out, and the labor of the plantation is applied to new
fields, which presently undergo a similar fate. Thus,
every year, a certain quantity of land is given over
as worthless, and new inroads are made upon titie
original fo^st. Agriculture becomes a continual pro-
cess of ojPiing new fields, and.abandoning tlie old.

This brief accomit of southern agriculture, will serve
to explain the remarkable fact, that what we should
call improved lands, that is, lands which havebeoa

brought into cultivation, are generally of inferior value
and price to the adjoining wild lands which must be
chared up before they can be planted. Esrery crop
iaken from a field diminishes its value ; and as the
number of successive crops which can be taken with-
out reducing the land to a state of barrenness, is not
great, the diminution in its value, is sufficiently rapid.
This is one ca:!se of the sparseness of population at
the siouth. No planter ever thinks he has land enough.
Bdiciwing that he destroys a quantity every year, he
is anxious still to enlargie his domain so as to be cer-
tain of having a supply sufficient to meet the con-
fittmptioti.

Almost the only wealth in the southern states consists
iiS lands and slaves. But slaves are only valuable as
Cultivators of the soil ; and as the productive power
df the soil diminishes, the value of slaves must decline
with the decreasing amount which they are able to
]^Hrodace. The inevitable consequences to which this
System of agticulture must finally lead, are sufficiently
tibvious. The soil in its whole extent, being at length
eikhausted, the slaves will hardly be able to produce
l»tiough fot their own support They will cease to
possess any marketable value ; and the entire mass of
the population will sink down into a state of misera-
We poverty, from which they can emerge only by a
complete change of manners and habits, and a tho-
ron^ revolution in the social system.

Not is this period by any means so distant as may
At first appear. For though the superficial extent of
the clave holding states is very great, the quantity of
land which they afford of sufficient natural fertility to
admit of being cultivated according to the southern
method, is not groat Deduct the mountains, the mo-
rasses and the "vast pine barrens, and but a moderate
extent of land will retnain, a part of which has already
beefi exhausted and deserted, and all of ^ich, with
the exception of some alluvial tracks, along the water
eourses, is of a description not fitted long to withstand
the de*^ctive processes of southern agriculture.

IN AMEBICA.

m

^ This progress of pauperism; presents itself under
very different aspects, in different states of the union,
according to the antiquity of their settiement, and the
density of their population. In the newer states, in
which the proportion of virgin land is still very great,
to a superficial view it is altogether non-apparent.
Its early operation suggests nothing but ideas of pub-
lic prosperity and increasing wealth. But there is a
certain point where the tide turns. The spendthrift,
so long as his money holds out, has the appearance
and enjoys the reputation of abundant riches. It is
only when his resources begin to fail, that the reality
of his condition, and the true nature of his conduct
become apparent.

Virginia is the oldest of the slave states. All the
rest are treading in her footsteps. From her unfortu-
nate condition at the present moment it is easy to
portend what theirs must presently become. Eastern
Virginia, including all that portion of the state cast of
the Blue Ridge, presented to the original colonists, a
most inviting country. Washed on one side by a spa-
cious bay, into which poured numerous rivers, broad,
deep and navigable, all the lower part of the state had
received from the hand of nature such unusual facili-
ties of water communication, that hardly a point could
be found twenty miles distant from navigable waters ;
and for the most part, every plantation had its land-
ing place. These numerous rivers were stored and
still continue to be stored with such an abundance of
fish, fowl and oysters as might alone suffice to suj^port
a numerous population. Above the falls of the rivers
was a hilly diversified country, j^enerally rich, and if
it had some barren tracts, am>rding spots of the most
exuberant fertility.

Whe^l^|tern Virginia first began to be settled, it
afibi'ddfl^Hpnd all question, the richest and most
^esirafl^HHntry any where to be found along the
AtlantiWRffit of the union.

The cultivation of tobacco soon became so profita-
ble, that the more industrious of the colonists grew
11*

rich t>y it. Most unfortunately they invested th^
profits in the purchase of slaves from Africa. The
introduction of slave labor presently proved fatal 16
the industry of the free. But this circumstance was
little thought of or regarded, so long as the tobacco
cultivation continued to increase, and to bring in rich
teturns. The wealthier planters rose to the condition
of nabobs. They extended their plantations, increas-
ed the numbei of their slaves, and spent freely the
large incomes which their estates produced. The
apparent wealth and prosperity of the country wiui
very great

By degrees, the entire surface in the older portion*
of the state had been cleared, planted and exhausted.
Tobacco requires a rich soil, and the impoverished
land would no longer produce it. It became neces-
sary t& nhmdm this species of cultivation, first in the
tide-water di'jtricts, and afterwards in all that portion
of tho state north of the James River. The culture of
tobacco in Virginia is now confined, for the most part,
to a few of the southern counties, in the vicinity of the
Kise Ridge, in which some virgin land is still to be

The cultivation of grain succeeded to that of tobac-
co. These crops were far less profitable; but even
these, when taken in constant succession from the
same so'i, kre scarcely less exhausting. The lands
have continued to deteriorate till large tracts have been
abandoned as absolutely worthless. Meantime, a
constant stream of emigration has been pouring out
of Virginia. It was first directed to Kentucky, and
the states north-west of the Ohio. It then consisted of
Uie poorer pordons of the white population, who were
the first to suffer from the general decline. This emi-
igration is now diifected towards the c^jb^owing
ttatea of the south-west It is greater uHHf^>
embraces the wealthiest men and the iar^^^We-hold-
ers, who find that slave pfoperty, whicn^ipftlueless
In Ulrginia, except as an article of exportatiOT/catt be
pat to profitable use in the cultivation of cotton. Th<>

domefetic felate-trade prodticea another fejuaWy ^rioiui
drain upon the population of Easlfern Virginia. la
default of crops, the planters have no other means eft
meet their expenses, except selling their slaves. Thii
affords a momentary relief, hut it is fatal to the per-
manent prosperity of the country, which in losing its
lahoring men, in losing its cultivators, loses the only
means whereby it can recover from its present decline.

That part of Virginia which lies upon tide waters,
presents an aspect of universal decay. Its populati<Hl
diminishes, and it sinks day by day, into a lower
depth of exhaustion and poverty. The country be*
tween tide waters and the Blue Eidge is fast passing
into the same condition. Mount Vernon is a desert
Waste; Monticello is little better; and the same cit-
eumstances which have desolated the lands of Wash^
ington and Jefferson, have impoverished every plants
er in the state. Hardly any have escaped save tl^
owners of the rich bottom lands along James Eiv«r,
the fertility of which it seems difficult utterly to destroy.

This thriftless system of cultivation, which consist!
in exhausting a field and then abandoning it, prevail*
ed originally in the more northern states as well as iA
Virginia. So long as the quantity of new land tip-
peared inexhaustible, this method of cnltur® was ii
natural and profitable operation, and it was continued
by habit long after its bad policy became apparertt.
Soon after the close of the revolutionary war the «amd
symptoms of exhausted fertility which begun to shoi«^
themselves in Virginia, made their appearance also in
the more northern states. The farmers presently
beeame fully sensible of the ruinous course they weii
pursuing, and the more intellt^nt began to turn their
attention towards an improvea methcra of cultivation.
The custom of manuring, introduced by degree3, 'm
now c<msidered in ail the older parts of the cotmtry,
an essential part of husbandry. A proper rotation of
erops is very generally attended to, and at present it
is well understood, that lands under a pfop^ system
of cultivation ought to increase rather than deeliit«

DE3FOTI9BI!

in fenility. In fact, within the last twenty years so
great has been the improvement in agriculture in the
oider portions of the northern states, that the face of
the country has assumed a new aspect, and large tracts
which were formerly considered as naturally barren,
and worthless, have been transformed into fertile and
productive farms. Improvements in culture keep pace
with increase of population, and the soil, instead of
being constt ntly deteriorated, is constantly increasing
in productivtness and value.

Some patriotic citizens of Virginia have from time
to time made great exertions to promote in their own
state, an emulation of these northern improvements.
But their well-intended efforts have utterly foiled. In-
deed they are opposed by irresistible obstacles. In the
free states the land is portioned out into small farms,
titled by the hands of the owners, whose attention is
exclusively bestowed upon the business of agriculture.
There is a certain portion of intellect devoted to the
improvement of every hundred acres. In Virginia the
land is held for the most part in port' s ten or twenty
times larger, and even were the own< zealous for im-
provement, on farms so large that same careful over-
sight and attention could not be bestowed on every
part But then the owners of the land will not give
their attention to the matter. It is contrary to the
whole tenor of their habits, taste and education. They
have slaves, and can hire an overseer. VIThy should
they plague themselves with the details of a business
which they do not like, and do not understand ?

From the overseer and the slaves, as they have no
interest in improvement, of course nothing is to be ex-
pected. In fact it is the obvious interest of the over-
seer to scourge as much out of the plantation as pos-
sible, without the slightest regard to future conse-
qnences, especially if he is paid, as overseers often are,
by a portion of the crop.

But there are obstacles, to be encountered still more
serious than these. Improvements cannot be made
except by the expenditure o{ % certain portion of c£pi-

' tsl iipo!i the land. Eitheir additionlU st&r«s tamt b«
ptirctiased, or elfiMs a certain portion of the labor fio#
employed in producing a small crop, must be divei ted
ftom mimediate production, and employed in opera-
tions undertaken with a view to distant returns. But
this is an expenditure which the greater number of
|>lanters cannot afford. As it is, with all their slaves
employed in scourging out of the land the greatest
immediate produce, their expenses exceed their in."
comes, and they are running into debt every year.
They are in no condition to risk the loss or curtail-
ment 6{ a single csop by changing the establishM
ffiethod of cultivation, and attempting the inttbduo*
tion of improvements.

More yet, it is positively bad economy fot a Yirg^iA
planter to undertake tlie improvement of his estate
Labor is the only means of resuscitating the exhausted
lands of Virginia. Slave labor is the only kind of la-
bor which in the present condition of things can M
employed fot that purpose. But in the slave market,
the Virginia planter, even though he has. money at
eommand — ^which is a case sufficiently unusual, — can-
not afford to compete with the slave traders fromi thd
South west. The profits which he can possibly derive
from slave labor will not warrant him in paying so
high a price. Of course he does not purchase; th«
slaves are driven off to be employed upon cotton plant-
ations, while the lands of Virginia are left unimprdy-
id, and still declining in value. Even as regards th^
labor of slaves already in the planter's possessi^, it ^
k much more profitable operation to emigrate Wift
these slaves to Mississippi or Louisiana, and th«re t6
employ their labor in raising cotton, and killing lan^i^
than to attempt the improvement of the worn <Mkt
lands at home.

That high price of slaves in the south western mftt-
ket, which the Virginians regard as a fortunate addi^
tion to their diminishing resources, is likely to provi
kl its ultimate results, the greatest eurse with whi«h
th6 state <}ottid be visited. If it trere not for the do-

m

ijsestic slave trade, slaves woiad scarcely have an ex-
changeable value in Yirginia; the great cheapness of
labor would facilitate agricultural improvements^ and
the total impossibility of going on any longer in the
old. way, would lead to important changes in the ex-
isting system. As it is, the laboring population of the
country, that population upon which all its wealth
and. consequence depends, is daily drained away. The
state is bleeding at every pore, and a fatal lethargy
must be the consequence. The richest soil, the moat
exul)erant fertility without labor is improductive and
worthless. What will be the condition of a state
which has sold to the slave traders, the only laborious
part of her population, whose most enterprising citi-
zens have deserted their homes, and who£3 exhaust-
ed lands hold out no temptation to emigrants from
abroad 1

In addition to the obstacles already pointed out in
the way of agricultural improvement at the South,
there is one yet to bt; mentioned, of a still more per-
manent and decisive nature. It is a well established
doctrine, that a rotation of crops, a variety and a very
considerable variety in the articles cultivated, is es-
sential to a highly improved state of agriculture. But
such a rotation and variety is impossible in a country
which is exclusively agricaUural, and which must
necessarily can&ne itself to some crops that will pay
the expense of distant transportation. The number
of theae crops is exceedingly few, and they are all of a
▼ery exhausting character. The greater number of
y«^etable productions are only of use to be consumed
<m the spot; and such a consumption cannot take
plCi» to any considerable extent, except there be in
the neighborhood a manufacturing population to take
off the extra supply. Agricultural improvements have
ever kept pace with the extension of manufacturing
iodustry. The reasons have been already given why
the creatiw of a manufacturing population under
ea^iting circumstances, is impossible at the south, and
that subject will be farther considered in the follow-
ing section.

131

The condition of agriculture in Eastern Virginia,
is in a greater or less degree its condition in Mary-
land, in North Carolina, in South Carolina, and in the
older parts of Georgia. In the two latter states the
cultivation of cotton has been attended by conse-
quences exactly similar to those produced in Virginia,
by the culture of tobacco. After pouring in upon
those states a momentary flood of wealth, which glit-
tered and disappeared, it has left the soil in a state of
exhaustion and barrenness, for which no present reme-
dy appears.

The south-western states, Alabama, Mississippi and
Louisiana are now the El Dorado of the slave-holders.
In those states, cotton at present prices is a very pro-
fitable crop. The demand for slaves is brisk. Good
field hands sell for nine hnndred, or ten hundred dol-
lars. The slaves of Maryland, Virginia and NortK
Carolina are purchased up in droves for this market,
and numbers equally large are moved off to the south-
west by emigrating planters. But these slaves, if they
are lucratively employed in cultivating cotton, are
employed at the same time, in killing land. Slavery
will presently visit the south-west with the same blight
of exhaustion and barrenness, which has already
alighted upon Virginia and the Carolinas. In propor-
tion to the rapidity with which the apparent immedi-
ate prosperity of the south-western states is now ad-
vancing, will be hastened the era of their decay.

In the free states of the Unionj the wealth of the
west promotes the wealth of the east. The more
prosperous are the new states, the moi-e prosperous
are the old. At the south it is not so. The new
states are aggrandized at the expense of the old
ones. But this a^randizement has nothing in it,
solid or permanent. For a short time a great annual
income is obtained ; but it is obtained only by the an-
nual consumption of a portion of that natural fertility,
in which consists the only real capital of those com-
munities, and this capital being presently exhausted,,
their short lived prosperity vanishes like a shadow.

m

SECTION IV.

Siwvfa<:iwrt9 and Commerce in (he Slaverholding

l^aies.

No merely agricultural nation ever yet attained a
high degree of prosperity, or civilization. To attain
that result it is necessary that manufacturing and
commercial industry should combine with agriculture.
All these three branches of industry are so sympathet-
ically connected, that neither of them alone can be
carried to any great degree of perfection.

There have already been suggested several reasons
why manufactures cannot prosper in the slave-holding
states. It is necessary here to recapitulate them and
to bring them together in a single point of view.

1. Skill in the greater part of the mechanic and
manufacturing arts, is not consistent with the state of
total ignorance and barbarism in which it is judged
the best policy that the unprivileged class should be
kept. Skilled laborers are and must be, more intel-
ligent and better informed, than those of an ordinary
kind.

2. Such skill is still less consistent with that social
condition which deprives those subjected to it, of all
motive to acquire that degree of expertness, on which
the success of most mechanical operations so essen-
tially depends.

3. With respect to the laboring part of the free pop-
ulation, the acquisition of manufacturing skill )s little
to be expected from the state of ignorance, indolence
and depression which are to them the natural results
of the existence of slavery in the community of which
they form a part.

These three reasons go to cut off the supply of that
kind of labor essential to the prosecution of manufac-
turing operations. But besides labor, there is needed
knowledge, tact, skill and judgment in the oversight
and direction of labor, and capital to set it m operation.

IN AMERICA.

133

1. With regard to the oversight and direction of
manufacturing operations, persons are very rarely to
be found among the native population of the southern
states, possessed of the necessary qualifications. The
whole course of their education and habits is averse to
that system of order, economy, and minute and exact
attention, which such a business requires.

2. As regards capital, it has been shown in a pre-
vious section, under what disadvantages all industri-
ous operations labor at the south, from the compara-
tively large amount of it, necessary to set them in ope-
ration. In any manufacturing business for example, i^
is necessary to have capital enough over and above all
that is required for the fixtures and stock, to purchase
the laborers who are to carry it on.

From the combined operation of these several causes
it results, both in theory and in fact, that manufac-
turing processes, on any large scale, are almost un-
known at the south, and that even the commonest me-
chanical arts are at a very low ebb.

It is obvious at once, when the condition of the
various classes of the population at the south is con-
sidered, and when regard is had to the state of manu-
factures, that trade cannot greatly flourish. The un-
privileged class have nothing to sell except what they
steal, and of course they have but Uttle to buy. The
laboring freemen, produce but little, and of course are
able to purchase but little. The class of wealthy
slave-holders is very limited in number, and a large
part of their income is often spent at a distance from
home. Tho principal mercantile operations consist
in the purchase and shipment of the great agricultural
staples, a business which is carried on for the most
part by means of English or northern capital, and at
the same time by English or northern agents, and
English or northern shipping.

Neither manufactures nor commerce can be regard-
ed as adding any thing considerable to the wealth of
the slave-holding states.
12

134

SESFOTISKI

SECTION Y.

InstahUUy and unteriainty of values in ike Slav&-
Holding States.

The necessity which the southern planters are un-
der of confining themselves to the production of a few
great staple crops, has been already stated and ex-
plained. Slave labor in the United States, was first
applied to the cultivation of tobacco. But the foreign
.demand for that article has been stationary ever since
the revolutionary war, while the domestic demand
increases only in proportion to the increase of the pop-
ulation. Since the Iticililics of transportation between
the western states and the Atlantic seaboard have been
so much increased by the construction of canals and
railroads, the farmers of Ohio have gone extensively
into the cultivation of tobacco. They produce it by
free labor, and the quantity of slave labor which can
be profitably employed in this culture is more likely
to increase than to diminish.

The second application of slave labor in the United
States, was to the cultivation of rice. That cultiva-
tion however is and always has been, confined to a
narrow tract of country along the sea coast of South
Carolina and Georgia ; and as the demand for the
article is nearly stationary, any considerable increase
of the production would so diminish the price as to
make it an unr; ofitable business.

Sugar \^ pruuuced chiefly in the southern districts
of Louisiana. This culture has been fostered by a
protective duty, but the climate is too cold and un-
steady for its extensive prosecution- A few favorable
jeasons created a very false idea of the profits of this
cultivation. A series of cold seasons has corrected
these hasty impressions. Even including Texas and
Florida, the production of cane sugar in the United
States must alwq^s be restricted to a limited area.

The cultivation of coUon, an article of which the

IN AMERICA.

135

consumption has so remarkably increased within the
last fifty years, has alone prcTented the entire depre-
• ciation of southern property. There has been thus
furnished a crop, to the production of which the labor
of slaves could be profitably applied, and which has
prevented such a competition in the other limited ^P'
plications of slave labor above enumerated, as would
have rendered them utterly ruinous.

The cotton cultivated in the United States is of two
distinct kinds, known in commerce, as Sea island, and
upland or short staple. The Sea island cotton has a
long silky fibre which adheres so slightly to the seed,
as to be easily removed by means of two wooden roll-
ers turning^upon each other, which suffer the cotton
wool to^pass between them, but which exclude and
separate the seed. This kind of -cotton is employed
only in the finest manafactures,'and its consumption is
very limited. It bears a. much higher value than the
other description but it is less productive, and requires
great care and labor in its preparation for market.
The sea air seems essential to it, and its culti^^ration
is limited to aik alluvial tract along the sea coast pf
South Carolina and Georgia, The cultivation of this
kind of cotton was introduced about the conclusion of
the revolutionary war : but it has always been of so
limited an extent as to hold out no relief to the great
body of the slave-holders.

The upland or short staple cotton, has a short fibre
adhering with such tenacity to the seed, as to require
the saw gin, an invention of the ingenious Whitney,
for its separation. This kind of ootton succeeds as
well in the interior as near the sea, and it is this kind,
the consumption of which has so rapidly increased.
It first began to be cultivated as a crop about the be-
ginning of the present century. For the first twenty
years its production was principally confined to Geor-
gia and the Carolinas. Since that time it has spread
into the new states of the south-west, which now pro-
duce more than three fourths of the entire crop, which
in the period since the peace with Great Britain in

136

DESPOTISM

1815, has risen from two hundred thousand bales, to
upwards of three millions, per annum.

The cultivation of cotton is the only employment of
slave labor which admits of profitable extension. The
price of cotton regulates the price of slaves, and in-
cidentally, the value of all kinds of property at the
south. When all values are thus made dependent
' upon a^ single pursuit, they are necessarily subject to
great f actuations. When there is a great variety of
employments, there is established in consequence, a sort
of average permanency of profits. Agriculture may
be flourishing, though manufactures and commerce are
suffering a temporary depression ; and some branches
of agriculture may be profitable, though others fail.
At the south, every tiling is staked upon thest cast of
a singb die ; and as is apt to happen in all such cases,
the planters are either in a state of high prosperity
which leads to great speculations and the creation of
great debts, or else in a state of depression, ruinous
both to northern lenders, and to southern borrowers.

The commercial fluctuations of the United States
generally take their origin at the south. A high price
of cotton creates at the south a feeling of wealth and
a strong disposition to contract debts, while it pro-
duces at the north, a strong disposition to give credit.
Even though the price of cotton continues high, the
expectation of the planters runs so far beyond the
reality, that they presently become unable to fulfil
their engagements; and if a decline in the price of
cotton should follow, their inability l)ecomes total, and
the severe losses experienced in consequence by the
merchants and manufacturers of the north, throw
^heir business also into a temporary confusion.

There is much reason to expect that these violent
fluctuations in the value of southern property will
presently terminate in a general and permanent de-
reciation. Whether lands and slaves, ten years
ence, shall have any considerable value in any of
the southern states, seems to depend very much upon
the fact, whether or not the consumption of cotton

IN AMERICA.

137

shall keep pace with its production. If production
should overrun consumption, the market will be glut-
ted, the price will fall, the business will become un-
profitable, and unless some new, extensive and protita-
ble application of slave labor should unexpectedly be
discovered, — an event which is highly improbable —
land and labor throughout the south, must undergo a
great declin^ in value.

There are weighty reasons for anticipating this result
within a moderate period. Twice already within the
last twenty years the production of cotton has so over-
run consumption as to reduce the profits of the busi-
ness to the lowest ebb. The price has shice rallied,
but this rise of profits has produced a new rusli into
the business, and a vast emigration from the more
northern of the slave-holding states, which must re-
sult in a great increase of the production. On the
other hand the consumption of cotton goods has al-
ready reached a point, which makes its extension con-
tinually more difficult. There is no reason to suppose
that it can go on increasing for twenty years to come,
as it has for twenty years past. That increase has
been principally caused by cotton fabrics superseding
for certain purposes, the use of linen and woollen cloths.
That is a process which has a certain limit and which
cannot be repeated. The consumption of cotton goods
will doubtless continue to increase ; but this increase
of consumption will be more upon a par than hereto-
fore, with the increased consumption of other manu-
factures.

Whatever the increased demand for cotton may be,
the slave-hoMing states of the Union, are liable to en-
counter a severe competition in supplying it. All that
portion of the American continent south of the United
States is well fitted for the production of this article,
Colton of a very superior quality is produced to a
large amount, in Brazil, and all Spanish America
will presently be entering the market as a rival.

Great exertions are now making in India, by British
cultivators, to improve the quality of Indian cotton,
12*

138

DESPOTISM

and not without success. The quantity of this article
worked up by the British manufacturers is steadily
increasing; and when we recollect how completely
the British indigo planters in India, succeeded in de-
stroying the cultivation of indigo in the United States,
which was once a very considerable business, by pro-
ducing a superior article at a less price, the competition
of the Indian cotton planters, however some ignorant
persons may ridicule it, is by no means to be despised.

Additional competition is to be expected from Africa.
The Egyptian cottons are already well known as of
very superior quality ; and it seems highly probable
that the French will presently introduce the same sort
of cultivation into their Algerine possessions.

On the whole it must be confessed that the single
prop of the cultivation of cotton, forms a most slender,
fragile and uncertain support, on which to rest the
prosperity of an extensive and increasing population.

SECTION VI.

Comparative Process and Prosperity of the Free
and of the Slave-holding States.

It is a fact too obvious to be denied even by the
most prejudiced observers, that the slave-holding states
of the Union are far inferior to the free states, in every
thing that constitutes civilization, — in wealth, in ed-
ucation, in the useful and ornamental arts, in public
institutions, in public spirit, in literature, in science,
in density of por»ulation, in facility of intercourse, in
the splendor of cities, the neatness of towns, the com-
forts and conveniency of individual dwellings.

Of the thirteen states which originally composed the
Union, slavery stiil prevails in six. It has been abol-
inhed in the others, where indeed it never existed to

IN AMERICA.

139

any considerable extent. These old free states, by
the separation of Maine from Massachusetts and the
admission of Vermont, increased to nine in number,
include an area of about one hundred and fiity thou-
sand square miles; the extent of the six old slave
states is upwards of two hundred thousand square
miles. By the first census in 1790, the former contained
a population of 1,908,000 souls ; the population of
the latter amounted to 1,848,000. Fifty years after,
by the census of 1840, the population of the old free
states amounted to 6,760,880, while the population of
the six old slave states was only 3,826,323. The cen-
sus of 1850 shows the continued operation of the same
causes, the free section having gained upon the popu-
lation of 1840 to the extent of 1,553,834, while the
increase in the slave section is but 713,312, or less
than half as much.

Density of population, and the existence of to\^'Tis and
cities, are essential to any great degree of social pro-
gress. Brought thus into contact, mind acts upon mind ;
what is discovered by one soon becomes known to all ;
emulation leads to new discoveries and enterprises;
competition constantly exerts its beneficial influence ;
the div ision of labor, that essential means of improve-
ment, is not practicable among a scattered population ;
cities are the central points from which knowledge, en-
terprise, and civilization stream out upon the surround-
ing country.

In the eight free States above referred to, we find
three large cities, New York, Philadelphia, and Bos-
ton, tho first'of which is generally regarded as the
commercial metropolis of the Union. There are not
less than twenty other considerable towns which are
growing with rapidity, and several of which promise
to rise to the first importance. Villages containing five
or six thousand inhabitants, are quite numerous ; new
ones are springing up every day, and others are pass-
ing from the class of villages into that of towns.

How different a picture is presented by the old slave
States ! They contain but one city deserving the
name, and that one, be it observed, is situated upoa

140

DESPOTISM

the verge of the free States, and owes the principal
part of its importance to that very circumstance. In
wealth, trade and public institutions, in literature,
science and general refinement, Baltimore is far in-
ferior to either of the great cities of the north. Charles-
ton is a little more than a place of deposite for the pro-
duce of the surrounding country, and a retreat for the
neighboring planters from the unhealthiness of their
plantations. It has been about stationary for this last
thirty years, and the same is true of Alexandria, Nor-
folk, Savannah, and other ancient towns. Jamestown,
the original capital of Virginia, has ceased to exist, the
ruins of an old church steeple are its only memorial
Williamsburg the second capital of Virginia, has long
been in decay. Such existence as it has, it owes to the
ancient college established there. Richmond, the pre-
sent capital presents a more thriving appearance, —
but to judge by the depopulation and impoverishment
of the surrounding country, it must soon share a simi-
lar fate.

What are called towns in these States, would for
the most part, be esteemed at the north, as little better
than villages. In addition to the small number scat-
tered along the sea-coast, there are a few of more re-
cent growth, situated on the great rivers, generally at
the head of steam-boat navigation. They are points
at Avhich the produce of the country is collected for
shipment, and whence imported goods are distributed
through the adjoining country ; but so few and far be-
tween, as scarcely at all to vary the dull monotony of
a poorly peopled country which presents at the same
time, all the rudeness of a new settlement, and all the
marks of old age and decay.

If the slave holding stales formed a separate and in-
Bulated nation, cut off from communication and inter-
course with the free states of the north, there is good
reason to suppose that they would fall rapidly behind
hand, in the career of civilization. As it is, they are
sustained and dragged along by the energy of their
northern sisters. Improvements are first started and

IN AMERICA.

141

put into execution at the north, then slowly and faint-
ly imitated at the south. The best educated and most
accomplished men of the southern states have passed
their youth at nor " em schools and colleges; such
seminaries for educa.. }n as the southe states possess,
are supplied almost entirely with xic lern or foreign
teachers. The whole trade of the somh, so far as re-
lates to transactions on the large scale, is in the hands
of northern merchants who carry on this important
branch of business for which the native citizens of
those states, seem to lack the requisite knowledge, sa-
gacity, perseverance and application. The learned
professions, physic, divinity, and even the law, are
more or less, recruited from the same source. The
newspapers have northern editors ; even the composi-
tors who set the types are imported. The same is the
case with all mechanics who have any considerable
skill in the art they profess. Southern rail roads are
built with northern capital and by northern engineers
and contractors. It is hardly possible to erect a large
hotel, or block of ware-houses without the aid of north-
em artificers. The southern states are supplied with
books and periodicals from northern presses ; and it
seems to be only by a close and intimate union with
the north, that civilization at the south is enabled to
make any progress, or even to preserve itself from de-
cline. It is worthy of special remark however, that
these northern men Avho tmigrate to the south imbibe
by degrees, the feelings and the habits, the indolence,
and the incapacity of the population by which they
are surrounded. They are unable to transmit to their
children any of those qualities which they carried with
them from home. These children, bred up after the
southern fashion, are thoroughly southern. It is con-
stantly necessary that new blood should be transferred
from the warm and vigorous circulation of the north,
to revive and quicken the veins, palsied, and made
stagnant by the poison of slavery.

CHAPTER FOURTH.

PBBSONiJ. RESULTS OF THE SLAVE-HOLDING SYSTEM.

SECTION I.

Personal Effects of Slavery upon the members of the

privileged class.

By personal results of the slave-holding system
those results are intended, which exhibit themselves
in the personal character of the members of a slave-
holding community.

Slavery has already been explained to be in its na-
ture, a protracted state of war. All its results are
sufficiently conformable to such an origin.

Soldiers possess a free and self-confident air, and
when among friends and not irritated or opposed, they
exhibit a frank good humor, an easy, companionable
disposition, which renders their society agreeable, and
causes their company to be generally courted. Their
military duties often leave them an abundance of lei-
sure ; lor long intervals, they often have nothing to do
but to seek amusement, and they give a warm and
hearty welcome to all who are disposed to join and aid
them in that pursuit.

These same traits of manners are sufficiently con-
spicuous among the privileged class of our southern
aristocracies. Though a large portion of that class is
destitute of education, and of any real refinement, yet
almost every member of it has more or less, a certain
patrician bearing, a consciousness of his own superi-
ority which gives him an air of manliness and dignity^

DESPOTISM Ui AMERICA.

143

but which it must be confessed, degenerates too often
into rudeness and braggadocio. The wealthier and
better educated, passing almost the whole of their
lives in a round of social pleasures, have attained to a
considerable perfection in the art of pleasing ; and
those who visit the southern states of the Union for the
first time, are generally captivated by the politeness,
the hospitality, the attentions, the good humor of the
people.

Manners however are far from being any certain in-
dex of character, and they are often carried to a high
pitch of refinement, in cases where all the virtues
which they seem to indicate, are lamentably deficient.

The soldier nursed in blood and robbery, however
mildly and gently he conducts himself, is at best only
a tame tiger, not rashly to be trusted. His passions
are violent and unmanageable, accustomed to indul-
gence, and impatient of control. It is the same with
the slave-master. Habituated to play the tyrant at
home, unshackled regent and despotic lord upon his
own plantation, where his wish, his slightest whim is
law,the love of domineering possesses all his heart. The
intercourse of society has taught him tjie policy and
the advantages of mutual concession in little things,
and the trifling points of ordinary politeness he yields
with the ready willingness of a welUbred man. Be-
yond this he is not to be trusted. Alarm his preju-
dices, his self-love, his jealousy, his avarice, his ambi-
tion ; cross bis path i»i any shape whatever ; assume
the character of a rival or a censor ; presume to doubt
his perfect wisdom and immaculate virtue; and from a
laughing, good natured companion, he is changed at
once, into a fierce, furious, raving and raging enemy.
He boils and almost bursts with passion ; he answers
argument with invective ; instead of reasons, he re-
plies to you with insults. Not content to restrain his
hate within the usual limits of civilized life, he thirsts
for your blood. He murders you in a duel ; assaults
you in the streets with pistols and Bowie knife ; or de-
liberately shoots you from the door of his house, vath

144

DESPOTISM

s, double-barrelled gun. The fear of the law does not
restrain hinic In the southern states, a gentleman is
never hung. The most cold-blooded and deliberate
murderers, in the upper classes of society, escape with
a fine or a short imprisonment. The gallows is re-
served for abolitionists, negro-stealers, and poor white
folks.

1. The condition of society in the southern states,
even among the most refined and best educated por-
tion of the people, exhibits frightful evidences of fe-
rocity OF TEMPER, such as a state of everlasting war
might be expected to produce. Thucidides remarks,
that from the time the Athenians laid aside the cus-
tom of going armed, civility and refinement began to
make a steady progress among them. This is a point
to which the people of the southern states have not
yet attained. They generally carry arms ; but the
pistols, knives and dirks, their favorite weapons, are
of a kind more fit for foot-pads and assassins, than for
well-intentioned citizens. In several of the states it
has been attempted to suppress by penal enactments,
this barbarous practice of carrying deadly weapons.
These laws are never enforced, and it is scarcely pos-
sible they should be. To carry arms in the state of
things existing at the south, seems absolutely neces-
sary. If his slaves resist, how else shall the mastei
maintain his authority 1 Those who have been sub-
dued by force, must be kept under by force ; and if
the armed conquerors, in moments of anger, some-
times turn their weapons against each other, that
is what is liable to happen among all collections of
armed men. What wonder if that inhuman and
blood-thirsty spirit, which the tyrannical rule they ex-
ercise, keeps more or less alive in the bosom of all
slave masters, often bursts out in full fury in their
quarrels with each other 1 The familiarity with which,
under the influence of excited passion, they talk of
murder is only to be equalled, by the savage ferocity
with which, under the same influence, they often com-
mit it. The atrocity of southern duels has long been

IS AMERICA.

145

notorious, — but what duer can be compared with those
"rencontres" of which we so often read accounts in
the southern papers, — accounts which among the peo-
ple of those states seem to carry with them all the in-
terest of a bull-baiting or a cock-fight, — ^in which two
men or more, armed to the teeth, meet in the streets,
at a court-house or a tavern, shoot at each other with
pistols, then draw their knives, close, and roll upon
the ground, covered with dust and blood, struggling
and stabbing till death, wounds, or the submission of
one of the parties, put an end to the contest? These
scenes, which if they take place at the north at all, ap-
pear but once an age, and then only among the lowest
and most depraved oftheemigrantpopulation, are of fre-
quent and almost daily occurrence at the south, among
those who consider themselves the most respectable
people. Andrew Jackson, late president of the United
States, and regarded as a most illustrious citizen, had
been engaged in several such affrays.

II. iMPROvmENCE is a vice of the most dangerous
character. The ancients were so impressed with the
multitudinous evils and miseries to which it gives
occasion, that they raised prudence to the dignity of
one of the four cardinal virtues. Improvidence la
however a failing, which is apt to prevail to a great
extent in a slave-holding community. The care-
less, headlong rapidity with which a planter spends
his money, is proverbial. This childish profusion
has even been raised among them to the rank of a vir-
tue ; it is described as the mark of a noble minded
man; while economy is decried and stigmatized as
mean and little. This sort of profusion may dazzle
and delight the weak-minded and the thoughtless. It
is very clear however that it seldom implies any of
that benevolence or magnanimity which it has been
supposed to indicate.

It generally originates in the desire to gratify some
whim of the moment, or, what is oftener the case, in the
desire to be admired as a person of wealth and liber-
ality. It is one way of gratifying the universal de-
13

146

DESPOTISM

sire of social superiority. A planter will spend some
hundreds upon an entertainment, and the next morn-
ing will refuse an extra pair of shoes to a lame old
negro, who has labored for him all his life. Ask one
of these lavish spendthrifts to do an act, not of be-
nevolence merely, but of justice, by setting a slave at
liberty, and he will laugh in your face. We hear of
many acts of profusion at the south, few acts of gen-
erosity. It is not there, that institutions are endowed
for purposes of public charity. No associations exist
there, or next to none, for charitable purposes. When
a subscription is to be raised for some object of public
benevolence, the contribution of our southern planters
is extremely scanty. They lavish thousands on their
own pleasures, and the companions of those plea-
sures ; they bestow little or nothing upon the suffer-
ings of strangers. Indeed it would be absurd to ex-
pect it. They who are not moved by the scene of
poverty, degradation and distress, which their own
plantations every day present, how can they be affect-
ed by the comparatively little miseries of which they
only hear, or which they but casually see?

The quantity of money that can be got is a limited
sum; the quantity that can be spent is indefinite.
Take the southern states throughout, and it is probable
that seven slave-masters out of ten, live beyond their
income. The labor, the fruits of which would have suf-
ficed to make fifty families comfortable and happy, be-
ing engrossed, with the exception of the barest subsist-
ence to the laborers, by a single family, does not suflice
to make that single family happy or even comforta-
ble. Improvidence subjects to all the miseries of ac-
tual poverty. Men in the possession of large estates
are tormented all their lives by sheriffs and duns, and
at their death, leave large families brought up in all
the luxury of wealth, and the helplessness of habitual
indolence, penniless and unprovided for, a prey to the
bitterest miseries of want,

HI. Idleness, says the copy book, is the mother
of all the vices. If any one doubt the truth of this

IN AMERICA.

147

ancient and homely maxim, to be convinced of it,
he need only spend a year or two in the south. He
will find a great many idle people there. Almost
all the owners of slaves have hardly any occupa-
tion except to amuse themselves. Bora and bred
to this occupation they become incapable of any other.
One would suppose that having so much leisure time,
they might turn their attention to the study of agri-
culture, an art upon which so wholly depends not their
private income only, but the public wealth of the com-
munities to which they belong. But no, — they have
no taste for such pursuits, and they leave the man-
agement of their plantations, entirely to their over-
seers. This neglect however ought not to be wholly
ascribed to their disinclination for regular and useful
pursuits. If they go much upon their plantations, so
many cruel sights come under their view, they are so
harrassed by petitions and complaints, they find them-
selves so oppressed by the cares of authority, that they
hasten to relieve themselves from the burden, and to
shift it to the shoulders of some case-hardened mana-
ger. All despotisms are alike. What happens to an
oriental sultan, happens to an occidental slave-master.
The weight of empire presses too heavily upon their
efleminate and feeble necks. Both alike spend in idle
luxury all that can be spunged from the forced labor
of their subjects, but both alike transfer the task of
spimging to a vizier, or an overseer.

Thus freed from all the cares of business, it might
be imagined that the wealthy slave-masters of the
south would bestow their time and thoughts upon the
pursuit of knowledge, the cultivation of literature, and
the agreeable arts. We might suppose that they would
push scientific investigations to their utmost limits,
astonish the world with new discoveries in morals and
in physics, or delight it with all the graces of poetry,
the beauties and sublimities of painting, sculpture,
music and architecture.

In these expectations we are totally disappointed.
Books are a rare commodity at the south ; literature

148

DESPO^SM

is imeommon and science stili more so. Libraries,
whether public or private, are seldom to be met with.
A few classics thumbed over at school, a few novels
old or new, a sprinkling of political pamphlets, and
some favorite newspaper, form the whole circuit of
letters and learning, ordinarily trodden by the most
studious of the planters. The education of the fe-
males, even rmong the wealthiest classes, is still more
superficial In this connection, it ought to be remem-
bered, that a very considerable portion of the priv-
ileged class are totally destitute even of the rudiments
of learning. To read is an accomplisliment they have
never acquired. Of course, it is not to be expected
that persons so unfortunately circumstanced, can find
employment for their leisure in literary pursuits.

Thus situated, with no resources for the occupation
of their time, the privileged class are constantly beset
by a weariness of soul, perhaps the most distressing
disorder to which men are subject. " Thank God I
am not a negro !" said a planter one day, as he sat
beneath the shade of his porch, and watched his slaves
in a neighboring field, at work beneath a burning sun.
Yet it may well be doubted whether the most miser-
able of those slaves v/as half as miserable, as their
unfortunate master, who lived in a lonely part of the
country, and suffered from a forced idleness and soli-
tude, the most poignant distresses.

It is a common remark among the planters that the
slaves are happier than the masters. Many will re-
ject this idea with indignation, as a mere falsehood,
invented to gloss over the abominations of tyranny.
No doubt the observation is generally urged with that
intent. But the truth of a fact does not depend upon
the use intended to be made of it, by those who assert
it. The more closely a man meditates upon the state
of things at the south, the more inclined he will be
to admit the truth of the above remark touching the
comparative happiness of the masters and the slaves.
Instead however of saying that the masters and the
riaves are equally happy, the idea might be more

IN AMERICA.

clearly and distinctly expressed by sayingj that both
masters and slaves are equally mis^erable. Slavery
is an invention for dividing the goods and ills of life
into two separate parcels, so as to bestow all the ills
upon the slaves, and all the good upon the masters.
So far as regards the slaves, this attempt is successful
enough. The miseries of life are concentrated upon
their heads in a terrible mass. But as respects the
masters the experiment fails entirely. The coveted
good, like that manna which the too greedy Israel'
ites sought wrongfully to appropriate, corrupts, putre-
fies, changes its nature, and turns into evil. Occupa-
tion too long continued is destructive to happiness, but
idleness is not less so ; and it ma^'- well be doubted
whether the compulsive labor of the slaves is any more
copious a source of misery than the forced idleness of
the masters. I say forced idleness, for in depriving
themselves of the motives to labor and exertion, they
force themselves to be idle.

To obtain some relief from the weariness that con-
stantly besets them, the planters seek to divert and
occupy their thoughts by social intercourse. This is
the origin of that hospiialiiy for which the people of
the south are so famous, and which is often brought
forward as a virtue ample enough to cover the ac-
knowledged multitude of their sins. Hospitality, it is
true, bears a certain relation to benevolence ; but it is
to benevolence no more than is the flounce to the gar-
ment. The attempt to conceal the nakedness of the
land by such a rag, is as contemptible as it is futile.
In truth, the visiters who arrive at a plantation confer
a real benefit upon the lord of it. They give him oc-
cupation. The efforts necessary to entertain, are not
less agreeable to him who makes them, than to those
for whom they are made. If the visiter be a total
stranger so much the better. There is the zest of nov-
elty added to the excitement of occupation. If he
come from a distant part of the country, better yet.
He will probably be able to suggest a great many new
and interesting ideas, likely to give an agreeable mO'
13*

160

DESPOTISM

tion to the stagnant soul of his host. Hospitality has
ever been a virtue abundantly practised among all
idle and indolent races. The indian tribes of America,
ere all celebrated for its exercise. The plundering
Arabs of the desert look upon it as a religious duty,—
for conscience and inclination are always apt to pull
t^ogether.

But the exercise of this virtue among the people of
the south, becomes the occasion of several pra^-tices of
the most dangerous and deleterious kind. It is not
the cause of those practices, but only the occasion for
them, in itself, it is essentially good, and displays
the character of the slave-holder in the most amiable
light it ever assumes. Hospitality is benevolence on
a small scale, and bow can benevolence on any other
scale be expected, from men whose total existence is
a continued violation of its clearest and most urgent
commands 'I

1. The spirit of improvidence, above described, as
one of the evil results of the slave-holding system,
when it becomes associated with the passion for hos-
pitality, is reenforced by tv;o very powerful motives,
which give it new impetus ; first, the desire of at-
tracting visiters, by the superior luxury and expen-
siveness of the entertainment offered ; and second and

f)rincipally, the love of superiority, that spirit of emu-
ation and rivalry, which leads each planter to outvie
his neighbor in the profusion of his hospitahty. It is
aatonishing what a number of southern planters have
been ruined in their pecuniary affairs by the joint ope-
ration of these means.

2. The Hospitality of the south, not only stimulates
improvidence, it is the nursing mother of the vice of
DEUNKENNESs, which prevails throughout the whole
country to a frightful extent. Dinner parties end too
often in general intoxication. What is called the
Temperance Reform, has made but trifling progress
in the slave-holdicng states. The obstacles in its way
axe immense. To drink is absolutely necessary as a
means of killing time. Among me lower orders of th*i

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151

privileged class, every social meeting ends in drank-
enness. Attend an election, and by the time the polls
are closed, you will find a great collection of citizens
at the place of voting, all or most of them, gloriously
drunk." Stay long enough and you will see a fight.
In Kentucky such occasions are apt to Avind up, with
what is called a free fight, that is, a general and indis-
criminate knock-down, in which every body present
is at liberty to participate. This is the grand finale^or
concluding chorus ; but before this part of the per-
formance is reached, there are duets, trios, quartets
and quintets, in all possible variety In Mississippi
TennesBee, and elsewhere, laws have been enacted,
prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors in small
quantities. Some movements have also been made in
Georgia and South Carolina, towards obtaining the
passage of similar laws. Laws of this kind are easily
enacted in those states, much more so than at the
north, because in those states, the w^holesale trade in
liquors is almost entirely confined to a few northern
merchants and traders, who have no political influ-
ence, while the retail trade is in the hands of a set of
poor white shopkeepers, rendered odious and infamous
by their habit of secret traffic with the slaves, and
belonging to that inferior class of the privileged order,
which though it exceeds in numbers, is deprived for
the most part, of any political authority. Bat how-
ever easy it may be to enact such laws, it will be
impossible to enforce them, so long as the very legis-
lators by whose votes they are enacted, are themselves
perpetually in the habit of excessive drinking. These
laws will fall into the same total neglect with the
statutes against wearing concealed weapons already
referred to, and those against gaming, to which we
sliall presently refer.

3. But such is the total stagnation of intellect and
sentiment at the south, that even the stimulus of in-
toxicating liquors is not enough to give life and zest
to social intercourse. There is need of more potent
means. Necessity is the mother of invention. That
means is at hand. It is gamino. *

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DESPOTISM

This vice, more dangerous and dreadful, if possible,
even than drunkanness itself, is equally prevalent at
the south. Many attempts have been made to eradi-
cate it. There are penal laws against it, iu all the
slave holding states. Of late, we have seen the sum-
mary process of Lynch Law applied to the same pur-
pose. In Vicksburgh, one of the principal towns in
the state of Mississippi, the most respectable people of
the place assembled in the month of July, 1835, and
after pulling down several buildings used as gambling
houses, proceeded to seize the persons of Jive profes-
sional gamblers and to hang them on the spot, with-
out judge or jury. "These unfortunate men," says
the Louisiana Advertiser^ "claimed to the last the
privilege of American citizens, — the trial by jury, —
and professed themselves willing to submit to any
thing their country would legally inflict upon them ;
but we are sorry to say, their petition was in vain !
The black musicians were ordered to strike up, and
the voices of the suppliants were drowned by the fife
and drum. Mr. Riddell, the cashier of the Planter's
Bank, ordered them to play Yankee Doodle, a tune
which we believe has never been so prostituted before,
and which we hope, and we trust will never be again.
The unhappy sufferers frequently implored a drink of
water, but were refused. * * * * ^phe wife of
one of them, half distracted at the cruel treatment
and murder of her husband, trembling for her own
safety, in tears begged permission to inter her hus-
band's body, — but in vain. She was afterwards
compelled to fly, with her orphan child, in an open
skiff, for her personal security. The same faie was
threatened to any person who should dare to cut down
the bodies before the expiration of twenty-four hours.
At eleven o'clock the next day, they were cut down
and thrown together into a hole, which had been dug
near the gallows, without coflins or any other pre-
parations, except a box into which one of them was
put."

Of the persons who assisted at this exi3CUtion there

m AMERICA.

353

was not probably one, who was not himself in the
constant habit of gambling. Yet is ^he horror of this
vice so great in the southern states, and its ill effects,
brought home to the public mind by constant expe-
rience are so generally acknowledged, that the actors
in this tragedy were nevei* called to account before
any judicial tribunal, and their conduct, throughout
the entire south, was either openly approved, or very
faintly condemned. The tone of reprobation in which
the Louisiana Adveriiser speaks, found but a slight
and indistinct echo from the other southern prints.

Yet notwithstanding all the horror, with which this
vice of gambling is regarded, the indulgence in it; at
least among the men, is next to universal. Among
those who have been swept away by the prevailing
current, may be reckoned some of the most able and
distinguished of our southern and south-western ora-
tors and politicians, unable to withstand this any
more than other popular sins. When such men lead,
followers are always plenty. Every little village of
the south has its race-course, its billiard room, ita
faro table, and its gambling house, and of the three
latter, perhaps several. This grows out of the moral
necessity of things. Men, in all ages, and in every
country, who have had much leisure on their hands,
which they knew not how else to employ, have ever
sought relief in some sort of gambiing. It is so al-
ways with savages, sailors and soldiers, and so it is
with the idle population of the south. The habit
once acquired, it becomes almost impossible to resist
its seductions. To reform a gambler is much the
game diSicult task as to reform a drunkard. The
planter who has been secluded upon his estate for a
week or a month, in irksome and wretched indolence,
his heart all the time devouring itself, orders his horse
or his carriage in a fit of desperation, and sets out for
the nearest village. The gaming table offers him the
speediest and most certain means of excitement, the
surest method of shaking oflf the listless misery which
oppresses him. To the gaming table he goes. It

154

DESPOTISM

Stands always ready, — for the necessity of the case has
created a peculiar class of men at the south, who are
gamblers by profession. It was to this class that those
men belonged who were hanged at Vicksburg. This
is a profession which has sprung up naturally at the
south, and as has been said necessarily, and which
can boast of more talent and accomplishment among
its members, than the three learned professions of law,
physic and divinity united.

The institution of slavery deprives a large portion of
the people of their natural occupation. But as man is
essentially an active animal, to supply this deficiency
it is necessary to create artificial occupations. Gam-
bling is the employment, which under similar circum-
stances, has ever presented itself to men, as a means
of killing time. In order that this employment may
be indulged in, whenever the want of it is felt, it is
necessary that a peculiar class should exist, as it were,
the priesthood oi the gaming table, always ready at
a'l times, to gamble Avith all comers. These are the
professional gamblers. They practise gaming not for
amusement, but as a liveUhood. If thr ^-^ft every
thing to chance and strictly observed the f play,

it would be impossible for them to live b> busi-
ness, because, in the long run, they would be certain to
lose as much as they won, and so could have nothing
left whereupon to live. Hence they are compelled
to play false. They must cheat, or starve. They are
not merely gamblers, but swindlers. This explains
the odium attached to their occupation. Merely to
gamble is no imputation upon any body's character
in the southern states, or. at most it is an imputation
of which nobody is ashamed. To be a gambler by
profession is infamous, because it is well understood,
that every professional gambler is a cheat.

But though the profession is infamous, still it is
crowded. Its members throng the steam-boats, the
hotels, the cities, and the villages of the south, and
among them may be found, the most gentlemanly,
agreeable, insinuating, talented, well informed men of

IN AMERICA.

155

the whole population, constantly on the watch, and
always laboring to attract, to allure, to please, many
of them attain a peculiar polish and elegance of man-
ners. New recruits are always crowding in. The
planter who has ruined himself by improvidence, dis-
sipation or losses at the gaming table, the young dis-
appointed heir, bred up in indolence and luxury by a
father who dies insolvent, — these persons find scarcely
any other way of gaining their daily bread, except to
adopt gambling as a profession. There is no other
business for which they are qualified, there is no other
art, which they understand. It seems hard to hold
these individuals strictly responsible for the evil they
do. You cannot expect them to starve. They are
the victims of a social system intolerably bad.

The professional gamblers are above described such
as they are, when at the head of their profession, and
in the heyday of success. In general, they soon begin
to go down hill. Proverbially improvident, they are
abundantly supplied with money, or wholly without it.
The latter presently comes to be their habitual condi-
tion. Their fate closely resembles that of prostitutes in
a great city. Drunkenness relieves their distresses for
the moment, but by destroying their health and their
intellect, soon precipitates them into lower depths of
misery. They become at last a burden upon relatives
and friends ; find in an ea. ly death a refuge from de-
spair; or are precipitated into crimes which carry
them to the penitentiary or the gallows.

The vice of gambling is not confined to the supe-
rior portion of the privileged order. It pervades the
lower class also. There are blacklegs and gambling
houses adapted to the taste and manners of all.

To the business of gambling, the professional gam-
blers from time to time, Add several other occupations.
They become passers of coimterfeit money, horse-
thieves, and negro-stealers. Nothing except the ex-
treme poverty of the country, prevents them from
organizing an jxtensive system of plunder. Horses
and slaves are almost the only thing, capable of trans-

156

DESPOTISM

portation, which can be stolen. In general, to pick
the pockets of the planters by the help of a faro table
or a pack of cards, is not only a safe, but a surer
operation than to attempt it in any other way.

Party politics, state and national, afford the only
topic, to any extent of an intellectual character, in
which any considerable number of the southern pop-
ulation, take any deep interest, or which serves to any
considerable extent, to dispel the fog. of wearisome
idleness, by which they are constantly threatened to
be enveloped. Politics at the south, are rather specu-
lative than practical. Every slave-holding commu-
nity is essentially conservative, and opposed to ail
change. The southern politicians puzzle and lose
themselves in vain attempts to reconcile the metaphy-
sical system of liberty acknowledged by their own
state constitutions, with the actual system of despo-
tism amid which they live,. Their ablest reasoners,
can boast no more than to be subtle logicians, and in-
genious sophists. Statesmanship is a thing they have
no idea of. Yet the study of politics, barren, empty
and profitless as southern politics are, has saved
many of the finest minds at the south from a total
stagnation, and affords to great numbers a stimulant
altogether more harmless than gambling and strong
drink. Great numbers of the southern planters are as
great adepts in political metaphysics, as the Scotch
peasantry are or were, in calvinistic divinity. Grant
their premises, — which for the most part are utterly
false, — and they reason like a book.

There have been enumerated above, five capital de-
fects in the character and conduct of the privileged
class at the south, viz : ferocity of temper, improvi-
dence, idleness, drunkenness, and gambling. It is but
justice to say, that the female portion of the privileg-
ed class are in general entirely free from the two last
mentioned faults, nor does ferocity of temper exhibit
itself among them, to any thing the same extent
as in the male sex. Idleness and improvidence are
their greatest and most striking defects.

IN AMERICA.

167

Among the men however, the whole five arc palpa-
ble, obvious, undeniable. As to this matter there can-
not be any dispute. It must be confessed, however
unwillingly that these faults are characteristic of the
southern people. It has been shown how they are all
aggravated, and rendered incurable, by the existence
of slavery. Any attempt to remove or palliate them,
while that cause of aggravation remains, can have
only a partial and limited success. It is in possible to
make men virtuous or happy unless by giving them
some steady employment that shall innocently engage
their attention, and pleasantly occupy their time. The
most essential step in the progress of civilization, is,
to render useful industry, respectable. But this step
can never be taken, so long as labor remains the badge
of a servile condition.

SECTION II.

Personal effects of slavery upon the members of the
unprivileged class.

Extremes meet. The truth of this proposition, in a
physical point of view is evident from the fact that
every motion upon the earth's surface describes an
elliptical curve. Experience would seem to show that
this proposition is almost as true in morals as in phy-
sics. At all events it is a curious fact, that the exist-
ence of slavery in a community, instead of producing
such diversities as might be supposed, does in fact, in
many very important particulars, operate almost ex-
actly alike upon the masters and the slaves. Fero-
city of temper, idleness, improvidence, drunkenness,
gambling — these arc vices for which the masters are
distinguished, and these same vices are conspicuous
traits in the character and conduct of slaves.
14

168

DESPOTISM

1. Ferocity of Temper. The first success of suf-
fering softens the heart, the long continuance of suffer-
ing tends to harden it. Suffering when long continu-
ed, begins to be looked upon as a thing of course. He
who constantly fears to feel the whip upon his own
shoulders, ceases to weep because it falls upon another.
Those who are accustomed to see authority exercised
almost solely in the infliction of pain, form present-
ly a close association between the two things. They
seem to be inseparable, and a liberal use of violent
means comes to be looked upon as the only method of
showing one's power. Now the love of power, or to
speak more correctly, that love of superiority, which
the exercise of power is a means of gratifying, is one
of the native, and one of the strongest impulses of the
human heart. The slave feels it like other men.
He indulges it, when, where, and as, he can, upon his
wife, his children and the horse he drives, or upon
such of his companions as superior strength, or the
appointment of his master has submitted to his con-
trol. He exercises his authority in the same way in
which authority has been exercised over him. In this
as in many other respects, he closely copies the exam-
ple of his master.

Let it be recollected also that ferocity of temper is a
peculiar trait of a savage or barbarous state of society.
In civilized countries, it is principally to be seen
among the most ignorant and least refined. Civiliza-
tion is perhaps more remarkable for its effect in soft-
ening the tempers of men than for any other single
thing. Slaves are purposely kept in a state of barbar-
ism and ignorance. That they should have little con-
trol over their tempers, and should give way to vio-
lent and sudden gusts of passion, is a matter of course.

2. Irrvprovidence. Among freemen, the pleasures
of accumulation are perhaps not inferior to the pleas-
ures of consumption. The pleasure that a house keep-
er enjoys from knowing that he has laid by a stock of
provisions sufficient to support his family through th«
winter, is sufficient to counterbalance a great deal of

IN AMEAICA.

159

saving and self-denial. But the pleasures of accumu-
lation are pleasures which a slave cannot enjoy. His
sole pleasure consists in consuming. It is therefore
his object to consume all he possibly can. To gratify
a present appetite is almost all he ever thinks of. He
knows that his master wil'. not suffer him to perish for
want of absolute necessavies. Any thing he should
lay by, he would be in constant danger of losing, be-
cause property is a thing which the laws do not allow
him to possess. When he has consumed a thing he is
sure of it, and only then —

Be fair or foul, or rain or sliine

The joys I have possessed in spite of late are miae,

Nor heaven itself upon the past has power,

But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.

The slaves never read either Horace or Dry den,
but they feel and they reason in the same way.

The spirit of improvidence has for its associate on
the part of the slaves as well as on the part of the
masters, a remarkable disposition for hospitality. But
the hospitality of the slaves may justly be regarded
as a virtue of a much higher order, than the hospi-
tality of the masters, inasmuch as the slaves bestow
out of their necessities, whereas the masters in gener-
al, give from their abundance. Sunday for the most
part is allowance day, and on those plantations where
meat forms a part of the allowance, it often happens,
where the vigilance of masters or overseers does not
prevent it, that within six hours, the portion of meat
given out for the whole week, is consumed in treating
friends and acquaintances from some neighboring
plantations, where meat is a luxury that forms no por-
tion of the regular allowance. The slaves are as fond
of nocturnal oitertainments as the masters are of din-
ner parties, and the profuse liberality with which,
from the scanty means within their power, they con-
tribute to get them up, shows them in point of good
fellowship, to be not less free hearted than their mas-
ters.

160

DESPOTISM

3. Idleness. The natural stimulus of labor is, the
hope of reward. The expectation of reward is capa-
ble of exciting the most strenuous exertions, and when
properly presented, never fails of effect. Where this
motive does not exist, industry is unknown. The
fear of punishment cannot produce it. The most it
can do is, to produce an empty appearance of it,
^vhich is in fact little better than idleness in the dis-
guise of labor.

But it is not alone ;the absence of reward that makes
a slave necessarily idle. In his mind labor is asso-
ciated indissolubly with the lash. Pain, weariness,
fear, the sense of inferiority, these are in his eyes,
the natural companions of labor. What wonder if he
regard it with disgust? On the other hand, idleness,
to his limited view, appears to be the distinguishing
badge of freedom, and with freedom he associates every
'dea of pleasure and content.

Idleness again, in point of fact, is in the case of a
slave a real luxury, a true delight, much more so,
than it ever can be in the case of a freeman, and that
for three reasons. First, because rest is ever delightful
to the weary, and those who labor by compulsion are
always weary. Second, because being idle, as has
been shown in a previous chapter, is a sort of means
whereby the slave is enabled to regain, as it were, a
certain portion • of his liberty. Third, because idle-
ness is a means of lessening the value of that stolen
labor upon which the master has seized, and so of in-
dulging that indignation and hatred which the slave
naturally feels. Do we not commonly destroy our
property, whether public or private, whenever that is
the only way to save it from falling into the hands of
an enemy ?

To make men industrious, who have all these mo-
tives for idleness, is out of the question. The experi-
ence of the world has proved ten thousand times over,
and every individual who will but consider his own
motives of action, must be abundantly, satisfied, that
the only stimulus that can be relied upon as able to

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161

produce a life of regular industry is, — the hope of re-
\yard, — a fair prospect of being permitted to enjoy un-
aistarbed, the fruits of our labor.

4. Drunkenness. The excitement which drunk-
enness produces is of so very pleasurable a kind, that
those who have once experienced it, have need of very
strong motives to enable them to resist the temptation
it holds out. Especially is this the case with those who
lack that steady, regular yet innocent stimulus sup-
plied by a daily occupation in which they take pleasure.
When occupation is wanting, or when instead of be-
ing pleasurable the occupation to which a man is
obliged to submit, is irksome and disagreeable, there
results a miserable weariness of soul, against which
drunkenness offers an opiate so tempting that even
the most intelligent and best educated are not always
able to resist it. That the slaves as a body should
greedily snatch at it, is not surprising.

5. Gambling. That same wearisome state of
•mind, which among both bond and free is the greatest
temptation to drink, proves also the strongest induce-
ment to gamble. The human mind craves excite-
ment. It is the very vital air of the soul, as essential
to it as motion is to the health of tlie body. If this
desire cannot be gratified by innocent means, means
of gratification will be devised which are not inno-
cent. Of these means gambling is one of the most po-
tent and pernicious ; and a means as popular among the
slaves as among the masters. It ought to be observ-
ed however with respect both to this vice and to that
of drunkenness, that both of them prevail to a much
less extent among the slaves than with the free, be-
cause the opportunities, means, and facility for these
kinds of indulgences which the slaves possess, are far
inferior to those possessed by the free.

It is proper also to observe that the five great de-
fects of character and conduct common as we have
seen to the privileged and the unprivileged classes
at the south, all exhibit themselves among the free,
in a form more aggravated, and more disgusting —
14*

162

DESPOTISM

at all events in a form far more pregnant with mis-
chief than among the slaves. Slavery it would seem
is but the foster-mother of vice ; tyranny is the real
parent, — for the privileged class at the south have
not yet reached that point of refinement indicated by
Burke, at which vice by losing all its grossness loses
half its evil.

The ferocity of the slaves is a mild thing compared
with the ferocity of the masters. It is rare to hear of a
slave murdered by a slave, while the murder of white
men by white men, is an every day occurrence.
The instrument of vengeance which the slave most
commonly employs, is his fist, or at most a club. The
master uses pistols, dirks, knives, and double barrel-
led guns. With all the bad reputation of Spain and
Italy, assassinations were never a quarter so common
in those countries as they now are in the south-western
states of the American Union. The chance or rather
I might say, the probability of dying a violent death
seems to be far greater in the states of Mississippi,
Arkansas and Texas, than in any other part of the
known world, not even the most barbarous countries
excepted.

Idleness we must consider, presents itself to the
slaves under the aspect of a pure good. In them it
cannot be regarded as a vice. Is it a crime to evade
as far as possible, the violence of robbery ?

The privileged class on the contrary, are able to
view idleness in its true light. It is not only the
cause, and to the privileged class perceptibly the
cause of all those evils traced to it above, but the love
of idleness is in fact, the real foundation of slavery.
The masters wish to enjoy without working ; to reap
where they have not sowed, to gather where they
have not strawed. This is the whole secret of the
social system of the south. This unjust desire, which
in the nature of things never can be fully gratified —
for the enjoyment thus obtained is poisoned and cor-
rupted by a certain secret inherent flavor of bitter-
ness —

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163

— Medio de fonte leporum,
Surgit amari aliquid, quod in ipsis floribus angat, —

this unjust desire to possess without labor, may be
looked upon as the fruitful source of all the evils which
the system of slavery involves. Under such circum-
stances, idleness ceases to be merely a vice, it becomes
a crime, and a crime too of the very blackest die ; for
it is the immediate cause of all kinds of crimes which
men have agreed most to stigmatize, and those crimes
too not perpetrated one by one, and in defiance of law,
but perpetrated wholesale and systematically, not by
individual upon individual, but by one half the com-
munity upon the other half, and that too with the
sanction of legislatures and tribunals.

As regards improvidence, drunkenness and gam-
bling, on the part of the slaves they are comparatively
venal offences. The harm they can do is limited, and
is confined almost entirely to the person of the offen-
der himself. There is no danger that by giving way
to them, he will precipitate a whole family into pov-
erty and distress. There is no danger that his ex-
ample will have a pernicious influence upon society
at large. What is the example of a slave? Nor is
there any likelihood that by giving way to these
temptations he may render useless gifts which prop-
erly exercised might have redounded to the benefit of
the community. The only talent proper to a slave is the
talent of handling a hoe. With him, these vices ter-
minate for the most part in themselves. The seconda-
ry evils which they produce are comparatively speak-
ing, inconsiderable. Among the privileged class these
indulgences give rise to a train of secondary evils of
which the mere catalogue would fill a volume ; evils,
which instead of confining themselves to the person
of the offender, overflow, spread abroad, sweep away
whole families, and inundate society. No language
is too strong to describe the dangerous and fatal char-
acter, which when practised by the privileged class,
these vices assume.

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PESPOTISM

SECTION III.

Points of diversity in the character of ike privileged
and the unprivileged classes.

1. Courage is one of those chivalrous virtues much
boasted of among the freemen of the south. They
are brave beyond question. All freemen are so.
Courage is a virtue which always exists in the great-
est perfection among freemen, because among freemen,
it is most esteemed and most cultivated. Courage is
essential to the maintenance of liberty. When it
happens that freemen are also tyrants, courage is cul-
tivated and fostered for the additional reason that it
is essential also to the maintenance of tyranny.
What importance is attached to this virtue at the south,
may be conjectured from the braggadocio spirit, which
so universally prevails there. Listen to southern
conversation, or read the southern newspapers, and
one would suppose that every mother's son of the free
population, was an Orlando Purioso, or a Richard
Ctjsurde Lion at the least. What wonder if courage
abound where it is so highly esteemed and so greatly
encouraged.

The slaves, on the other hand, are cowards. A brave
man may be found among them here or there, but
cowardice is their general characteristic. If it were
not so, the system of slavery would be very short liv-
ed. To organize a successful insurrection, something
more than mere courage is no doubt necessary. But
courage alone is sufficient to produce a series of un-
successful insurrections, and however individually un-
successful ; a series of insurrections would shortly ren-
der the masters' empire not worth preserving. If the
slaves are cowards, it is a vice to which they have
been diligently trained up from their earliest childhood.
Were a tenth part of the pains bestov/ed to make
them brave, which are taken to render them otherwise,
they would be as courageous as their masters, The

IN AMERICA.

165

boldest heart very soon becomes subdued, when every
indication of spirit, every disposition to stand at bay
is shortly visited by the whip, irons, or a prison.

2. The Chastity of their women is another chivalrous
virtue, much boasted of by the freemen of the south.
The southern people have reason to be proud of their
women. From the most disgusting vices of the men,
they are, as we have mentioned already, in a great
measure free, and such, active virtue as is to be found
at the south, at least the larger portion of it, is to be
looked for among the female sex.

If however the women have escaped to a certain ex-
tent, the blighting influences of tyranny it is because
they are sedulously shielded from its worst effects.

Chastity like courage is to a great extent, an artifi-
cial virtue, the existence of which principally depends
upon education and public opinion. Both education
and public opinion are stretched to their utmost influ-
ence to preserve the chastity of the southern women,
while the free and more luxurious indulgence which
jhe men find elsewhere, causes the seduction of free
women to be a thing seldom attempted.

Among the slaves, a woman, apart from mere natu-
ral bashfulness, has no inducement to be chaste ; she
has many inducements the other way. Her person
is her only means of purchasing favors, indulgences,
presents. To be the favorite of the master or one of
his sons, of the overseer, or even of a driver, is an ob-
ject of desire, and a situation of dignity. It is as much
esteemed among the slaves, as an advantageous mar-
riage would be, among the free. So far from involv-
ing disgrace, it confers honor. Besides, where mar-
riage is only a temporary contract, dissolvable at any
time, not by the will of the parties alone, but at the
caprice and pleasure of the masters, what room is
there for any such virtue as chastity ? Chastity con-
sists in keeping the sexual appetite under a close re-
straint except when its indulgence is sanctioned by
man'iage. But among slaves every casual union,
though but for a day. is a marriage. To persons so

166

DESPOTISM

situated, we cannot justly apply ideas founded upon
totally different circumstances. If we choOvse how-
ever to understand by chastity the restriction of one's
self to a single partner, chastity is very far from being
so rare a virtue among the women of the unprivileg-
ed class as is often asserted, and generally supposed.
Though the union may be dissolved in a moment,
at the slightest caprice of the parties, such separations
are much more rare than might be imagined. More
husbands and wives among the slaves are separated
by the hammer of the auctioneer, than by the united
influence of infidelity, disgust, or the desire of change.

3. Fraud, falsehood, and dishonesty are represent-
ed by the masters, as distinguishing traits in the cha-
racter of the unprivileged class. This charge is un-
founded. It has been shown already, that as between
master and slave, from the very nature of that rela-
tion, mutual confidence, trust and reliance, are out of
the question. To deceive his master is almost the
only means of self-defence in the power of the slave.
What ground of mutual confidence is it possible to es-
tablish between the robber and the robbed 1 To hold
those promises binding which are extorted by force,
to maintain that one is obliged to keep faith with a
plunderer, is to surrender up, to the hands of violence,
through the influence of a weak and cruel superstition,
or a piece of miserable and empty sophistry, not the
body only, but the soul ; not only actions, but the will ;
the future as well as the present ; — it is to strip weak-
ness and sufiering of their last defence, and to give
omnipotence to tyranny.

In their transactions with each other the members
of the unprivileged class at the south, are by no means
deficient in the great and necessary virtues of truth,
honesty and fidelity. The difficulty of inducing them
to betray each other is proverbial, and is a matter
of grievous complaint among masters and overseers.
There are amoifg the slaves, as among all bodies of
men, some who set up honesty for sale, and who be-
come instruments of tyranny in the hands of the pri-

IN AMERICA.

vileged class. There are others shrewd and slippery,
upon whom no dependence whatever can be placed,
even by their friends and relations. Characters of this
sort, are quite as common among the privileged order.
Indeed more so. There has been already mentioned
that great class of professional gamblers, whose sole
business it is to prey upon the community, to inveigle
the unwary, and entrap the ignorant. There is no
such class among the slaves. There is still another
great class among the privileged order, who live al-
most wholly upon the plunder of their richer neigh-
bors, the receivers, namely, of stolen goods, the keep-
ers of the petty trading stores, scattered throughout
the south. They take in the corn, cotton and rice
stolen by the slaves, and give in exchange whisky
and other luxuries. This class of traders is very
large. The severest laws have been enacted to
suppress them, but without success. Lynch law is
now and then administered upon them in all its sever-
ity, but the nuisance cannot be abated. These men,
compared with the slaves, are wholly without excuse.
They live by constant violations of laws, by constant
breaches of a social compact to which they have them-
selves assented. This is a case in which the receiver,
even in a legal point of view, is a thousand times
worse than the thief. Yet to speak within bounds,
for every five or six acts of theft, (or what is called
so,) committed on the part of slaves, there is at least
one act of reception committed on the part of some
freeman. We may therefore consider it to be reduced
to an arithmetical demonstration, that so far as relates
to violations of property, the offences of the free are
greater than those of the slaves. To this conclusion
we must come, even without taking into account the
appalling fact that the entire existence of a large part
of the privileged class is but one constant, steady vio-
lation of all those principles upon which the very idea
of property depends, and upon which the virtues of
truth, honesty, justice and fidelity must rest for their
only sure support. We may apply to the southern

163

DESPOTISM ■ IN AMERICA.

slave-holders, a jeu esprit oi Talleyrand's. A certain
pei3on was complaining that every body consider-
ed him a worthless, infamous fellow, yet said the
coraplainant, I do not know why, for I have never
to naiitted but one fault in my Ufe. " Ah i" said
1 alicyrand, "but when will that one fault be end-
ed?"

To those accustomed to look only at the outside of
*'^uigg. the results to which this chapter has brought
us. will no doubt seem strange. It is impossible, they
will say, that men whose circumstances are so contra-
dictory, and whose whole appearance is so different,
can after all, be so much alike. Such readers will do
well to call to mind the lines of Shakspeare, —

Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear ;
Eobes anu furr'd gowns, hide all. Plate sin with gold.
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks
Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw doth pierce it.

That gold however, with which the system of south-
ern slavery is plated, is not the true metal. 'Tisbuta
fairy, shadowy, imaginary gold which cannot cross the
running waters of truth, without being changed back
again to its original worthlessness.

CHAPTEE FIFTH.

LEGAL BASIS OF THE* SLAVE-HOLDING SYSTEM.

SECTION I.

Prelirrdnary Observations.

One main pillar of domestic slavery, as it now ex-
ists in the United States, is the idea that it rests upon
law. Law iy regarded with veneration, and no
where more so than in the United States, as the great
foundation and support of the right of property, of
personal rights, in a word— of social organization.
Jurists, with a natural disposition to exaggerate the
importance of a profession to which most of them
have belonged, have been induced to overlook or to
disregard the natural foundation of rights. Most of
them represent the idea of property us resting on a
merely artificial basis— the law ; not the law of na-
ture, but the law of convention. Upon that same
artificial basis, too, they are inclined raainly to rest
even the most important of personal rights. These
ideas, widely spread through the community, greatly
modify public opinion upon the question of slavery.
In the abstract, slavery, all admit, is sheer cruelty and
injustice. But slavery, as it exists in the United
States, is supposed to be legal; and being leggJ, is
supposed to acquire a certf.in character of right. To
use our best efforts for tho suppression of cruelty and
injustice, is admitted to be a moral duty. But then
it is a moral duty, and, in the opinion of many, a
paramount duty, to obey the law.

16 ' (169)

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DESPOTISM

Prevailing ideas on the theory of government tend
precisely the same way. Those ideas, derived from
Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, represent government
as a contract. The natural state of man, the state of
nature, is assumed to be a state of hostility on the
part of each individual against every other, or, ac-
cording to Rousseau, of total isolation. To escape
out of this wretched condition, men, we are told,
resorted to the artificial expedient of societies and gov-
ernments founded on contract. According to this
theory, the only moral principle involved in the idea
of government is — Contract; and this contract, we
are told, must be preserved inviolate, or government
is at an end, and chaos comes again. No matter how
absurd; no matter how unjust towards ourselves or
others: a bargain is a bargain; and though it stipu-
lates for the pound of Hesh, it must be fulfilled.
Many excellent men, ready to denounce slavery in
the abstract as the sum of all iniquities, will tell us,
in the sume breath, that the "compromises of the
constitution" guaranty its existence. It is morally
wrong, they say, to attempt to evade or get over,
or spt aside, those compromises- — an appeal to
notions of mercantile honor not without a powerful
influence upon the best portion of the community.

These opinions respecting law and government in-
volve, indeed, the inconsistency and absurdity of sup-
posing that men have power, by arrangement and
convention, to make that artificially right which
naturally is wrong — an inconsistency and absurdity
which there have not been wanting able writers to
expose. These writers h^ve shown clearly enough,
that the basis of law, the basis of property, the basis
of personal rights, the basis of government, are to be
sought for and found not in any artificial contracts, or
arbitrary statutes or usages, but in the nature and
constitution of man. They have shown clearly
enough, that law, bo far as it has any binding moral
force, is and must be conformable to natural princi-
ples of right; indeed, that in this conformity alon*^ its

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171

moral binding force consiats; ajid that so far as this
conformity is wanting, what is called law is mere
violence and tyranny, to which a man may submit
for the sake of peace, but which he has a moral right
to resist passively at all times, and forcibly when he
has any fair prospect of success. Buch, indeed, was
the principle upon which the American Revolution
was justified. The acts of parliament of which the
colonies complained, had all the fo'-ms of law, and
Mansfield and other great lawyers said they were law.
But in the view of the colonists they lacked the
substance without which law cannot exist. They sub-
verted those fundamental rights embodied in that
maxim and usage of the English constitution, which
couples taxation and representation together. Tax-
ation without representation was denounced by the
colonists as mere robbery, to which, though concealed
under the form of law, they were not legally obliged
to, and would not, submit.

The principle of the perpetuity and inviolability of
contracts, no matter what their object, character, or
operation, has been attacked with no less energy and
success. It has been triumphantly shown, that the
very essence and substratrm of contTact is, mutual
benefit. Contracts, whether in law or morals, have no
binding force without a consideration, a good and
valuable consideration. Men cannot bargain away
either their own rights or the rights of others. All
such pretended contracts are void from the beginning
•^the spawn of fraud in the one party, and ignorance
in the other, or of injustice and immoral intentions in
both. To say, that by committing the folly or the
crime of contracting to do an immoral act, a man
lays himself under a moral obligation to do that im-
moral act, is to overturn the very foundations of
morality. Nor are these principles the mere notions
of theoretical moralists. So f«r as relates to private
contracts, they are fully acknc vviedged and admitted
by all courts of law throughout the civilized world.
They constitute, indeed, the fundamentai prinqipie

172

DESPOTISM

upon which thofie courts administer the law of con-
tracts.

But all these appeals to general principles, however
able and conclusive, have, when applied to the ques-
tion of slavery, but little weight with the great body
of the community. Dir. they relate to points in
which that body had a Jirect, obvious, personal in-
I terest, the appeal, no doubt, would be irresistible.
When Andros, governor of New England, undertook
to deprive people of their lands, under pretence of
defective titles, " the men of Map-sachusetts did much
quote Lord Coke ; " and finding that useless, they
stripped Andros of his power. When Grenville at-
tempted to levy taxes without their consent, they
were ready at once to resort to fundamental princi-
ples, and, when those principles failed, to their mus-
kets. Then, the case touched themselves. When it
only touches the unfortunate negroes of the southern
states, or a few poor colored people of the north, it is
quite a different matter. Appeal to principle is then
denounced as wild and visionary. Always fearful of
effort and responsibility, the great mass of the com-
munity intrench themselves on this question behind
statutes, decisions, usage, the opinions of lawyers,
and the current iiotions of the day. To be sure,
slavery is wroiig and unjust, and impolitic and wick-
ed, but then it is — legal.

Nor, indeed, is this conduct to be wondered at,
the very courts, those reverend depositories of the
knowledge of the law, those vicegerents upon earth
of eternal equity and justice, having themselves set the
example. In mere questions of private right, the
courts resort, without hesitation, to those eternal prin-
ciples of right reason, that is, of true morality, which
they boast to be the foundation of law ; and they set
aside, without hesitation, every private contract which
has in it any trace or tincture of fraud or crime. But
when it comes to the enforcement of so called politi-
cal contracts, a sad change is observable. Individual
lawyers, indeed even judges on the bench, of the

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173

highest eminence, have not hesitated to say, that an
act of parliament contrary to the law of God, that is,
coi trary to the eternal principles of right, is void.
Such opinions have been thrown out incidentally,
with great apparent boldness and decision. But when
has an act of legislation been set aside on that ground ?
No court in England or America has ever yet dared
to do it Courts have bowed submissively at the feet
of the governments, their creators, ascribing to those
creators an omnipotence jver right and wrong greater
than the philosophy of our day is willing to allow
even to God himself. They hold, indeed, to the
. maxim Fiat jusiitia, mat coslum^ but in this sense :
" the will of the government must be done, though
heaven itself be trampled under foot." It must be
admitted as the settled doctrine of courts of law, that
the supreme legislative authority has the power to
declare to be law even that wjiich is against right
But this has been a forced concession ; and as Gal-
ileo, when obliged by the Inquisition to confess that
the earth stood still, mumbled yet between his teeth,
as he rose from his knees, "It moves though," — so
our courts of law, blushing and stammering at the
disgraceful concession extorted from them by fear and
power, have done their bfest to limit and to nullify
that concession. If the supreme legislature choobes
to say that manifest wrong shall be law, the courts
submit to enforce it as such. But then they will
never presuppose that the supreme legislature in-
tends to do any thing so absurd and cruel. If the
intention is plain, manifest, and clear, it must be
enforced ; but the courts will never resort to implica-
tion, or conjecture, or construction, to make out any
such intention. This principle in the interpretation
of legal enactments, perfectly well settled anS estab-
lished in all the courts of England and America, is
thus laid down by Chief Justice Marshall, in the case
of United States v. Fisher, 2 Cranch, 390. « Where
rights are infringed, where fundamental principles are
overthrown, where the general system of the laws is
15*

174

DESPOTISM

departed from, the legislative intention must be jx-
pressed with irresistible clearness, to induce a court
of justice to suppose a design to eftect such objects."

It is thus that, in all cases of injustice attempted
under the form of legislation, courts, while admitting
the power of the legislature, yet reserve to themselves
a power to defeat the wicked legislative intention, by-
refusing to suppose the legislature capaWe of any
such intention. But the extent to which this indirect
veto power is carried out in particular cases, must
evidently depend very much upon circumstances, and
especially upon the character and position of the
court. Where a court is exceedingly indisposed to
see, and is so situated as to be able to give effect to
its inclinations, " irresistible clearness " i° out of the
question. No possible form of words can produce it
Now the disposition on the part of the court to see or
not to see a wicked . intention, will depend upon two
things : first, the opinion of the court as to the degree
and aggravation of the wickedness ; secondly, their
opinion as to the amount of support likely to be found
in the cominaniiy, should an attempt be made to de-
feat that wicked intention.

Take the case of slavery for example. Suppose
that in a slave-holding community the question of the
legality of slavery is raised, and certain legislative
acta are quoted to sustain it. If the court should
happen to entertain the opinions professed by Mr.
Calhoun, that slavery is not only a blessing in itself,
but the essential foundation of a republican govern-
ment, of course they would see, with great fkcility,
ao intention in the quoted acts to give to slavery a
legal basis. Even if they entertained the more com-
mon opinion, avowed by Mr. Clay, that slavery,
though an evil in itself, is yet, tinder existing circnm-
stances, a necessary evil, the only means oif preserving
thi two races of whites and blacks from a war of
extermination, they wotdd still find no great difficulty
in perceiving a ieg^ilative intention to legalize slavery.
But suppose the jadges have the feelings proper to

IN AMERICA. 175

men enlightened and humane; suppose their eyes
fully open to the enormous criminality of slavery ;
suppose they saw in vivid colors ail its multiplied
evils and miseries, both for masters and slaves — it
would be very difficult for any form of words to es-
tablish, with "irresistible clearness," in the minds of
such men, a legislative intention to legalize so much
fo'Jy and crime. If, besides, they saw opinions hos-
tile to slavery openly avowed and spreading around
them ; if they saw a certainty of being powerfully
sustained in reinstating justice on her seat, — what
form of words would be able to satisfy such a court
that the supreme legislative authority intended to
sanction a system so horribly unjust ? At all events,
a court so constituted and so situated, would surely
never discover any such intention in a case where
there were either no words at all, or but very obscure
and vague ones.

It is the glory of the tribunals of the common law,
that, even when trampled in the mud by the feet of
power, they have never consented to lie there in quiet.
They have struggled, always to a certain extent, often
nobly, to rise again, to cleanse the ermine robes of
justice from the mire of ignorant, weak, cruel, self-
Beeking legislation, to lift again on high the balance
of equity, and, to the full extent of their power and
their light, to weigh out again equal justice to all.
But to enable them to do this, the community about
them must uphold their hands. What can four or
five gray-haired men do against the ferocity, the
wrongheadedness, the intentional injustice of a whole
community ? Men formed by long experience of the
world in its least amiable aspects, will not cast their
pearls before swine's feet. The sort of men who oc-
cupy the judicial bench are seldom much inclined to
outrun popular opinion ; yet however it may be fash-
ionable among them to affect to despise sudh opinion,
it is none the less true that their own views are greatly
influenced, if not indeed mainly determined, by the
prevailing sentiment of the community about them.

176

DESPOTISM

In these considerations we shall find a complete
reply to a taunt frequently thrown in our teeth by the
advocates of the legality of slavery. What more
absurd, they say, than to question a legality recog-
nized and admitted ever since the settlement of the
country i

But why absurd ?

From a period long preceding the settlement of
North America down to the famous decision in
Somerset's case, three or four years before our decla-
ration of independence, the legality of slavery was
also recognized and admitted in England. It required
the indefatigable perseverance of a Granville Sharpe,
the enlightened humanity of a Mansfield, an age
awake to the rights of humanity, and a community
free, in a great measure, from the bias of interest, to
draw up " from the deep well of the law " that " ami-
able and admirable secret,"

" No slave can breathe in England."

" The knowledge of the law," says my Lord Coke, " is
like a deep well, out of which each man draweth
according to the strength of his understanding." Is
it too much to hope, that we shall yet have American
judges with hearts and understandings strong enough
to draw up out of that same deep well the twin
secret, that there is not, and uever was, any legal
slavery in America? It is not strength of under-
standing that has failed us. Have we not had on the
bench of the United States Supreme Court a Jay, a
Wilson, a Marshall, a Story? What has been lack-
ing is heart, conscience, courage ; more than all, the
surrounding support of an enlightened and humane
pnbiic opinion, to sustain our judges in looking this
lurking devil of slavery in the face. No court of
justice in the United States has ever yet dared do it,
lest being called upon to decide against the legality of
slav€jy, they might be called upon, in so doing, to set
at defiance a conglomeration of interests and preju-
dices which they have not had courage to brave,

m ilMEHICA.

177

which no prudent court could be expected to brave.
And what has been wanting, no less than a fearless
court, a court daring enough to face, in the cause of
justice and right, the ferocious prejudices of a fero-
cious nation^ — has been, a learned, independent, fearless
bar. The court alone, unaided by the bar, is incapa^
ble of administering justice. Points must first be
presented, before they can be decided ; and how much
depends on the manner and the medium of their
presentation! Would the English law of treason
ever have been stripped of so many of its terrors, and
reduced so much within tbe limits of justice and
moderation, but for the earnest struggles of an Eiskine
and a Curran? Had O'Connell been an ordinary
lawyer, or an ordinary culprit, would the English
House of Lords ever have seen those flaws in his
indictment which the Irish judges had overlooked ?

No council has ever yet been retained for the slaves ;
no body of influential friends has ever appeared, to
impress upon the judges the necessity of serious in-
vestigation, and to assure them of support in sus-
taining the right. The case has gone by default;
or rather, it has never yet been entered in court

SECTION IL

Slavery as a Colonial InstUuHon.

Servitude in the Middle Ages existed in England
under two forms. Villeins in gross were slaves, in
several respects the same as ours, transferable from
master to master, like any other chattel. VtUeins
regardant were serfs, attached to the soil, inseparable
from it, and transferable only with it These same
two forms of servitude, but recently abolished in
Htmgary, may still be seen in Russia. Villeinage

178

was hereditary — the villeins ^oing the descendaula
of the ancient Britons and Suxons, held in servitude
from a time whereof the memory of man ran not to
the coutxary.

Previous to the discovery of America, or shortly
after that period, English villeinage in gross had
almost ceased to exist. So late as the reign of Eliza-
beth, only a few villeins regardaM remained, in
some obscure corners. The lawyers and the clergy,
in whom the principal intelligence of that age was
vested, had both greatly contributed to this result
In all questions touching villeinage, the English comt
itoon law courts bad made it a point to lean in favor
of freedom. All men viem supposed to be free, and
the burden of proof lay on the claimant To prove a
man a villein, unless he confessed himself such in
open court, — ^and the last recorded confession of this
kind was in the nineteenth year of Henry VI., (1441,)
—-it was necessary to show title to him by proscrip-
tion; that is, to show that, being born in lawful wed-
lock, he was descended of a stock of villeins on the
father's side time out of memory. For the English
common law courts refused to recognize the doctrine
of the civil law— that favorite doctrine of all slave-
holding communities — that the children of female
slaves inherit from the mother the condition of slavery.
They held, on the contrary, that the child followed the
condition of the father. Bastard children, being in
the eye of the law children without fathers, of course
were born free-— a doctrine which gave freedom to
gi'eat numbers, for, in all slave-holding communities,
the masters esteem it a part of their right to use the
slave women as concubines.

Taking a hint apparently from the Mahometans,
the clergy had denounced it as a scandalous and out-
rageous thing for one Christian to hold another in sla-
very ; and their preaching on this point had been so
successful, that about the time of the discovery of
America it had come to be considered a settled mat-
ter, not in England only, but tiiroughout Western

IN AMERICA.

179

Europe, that no Christian ought to be, or lawfully
could be, held as a slave.

But with the customary narrowness of that age, this
iraraunity from slavery was not thought to extend to
infidels or pagans. While the emancipation of serfs
wa-i going on, black slaves, brought by the Portu-
guese from the c<)ast of Guinea, became common in
the south of Europe, and a few found their way to
England. The first Englishman who engaged in this
business was Sir John Hawkins, who, during the reign
of Elizabeth, made several voyages to the coast of
Guinea for negroes, whom he disposed of to the
Spaniards of the West Indies. The queen granteSt
several pat/cnts to encourage this traffic; yet she is
said to have expressed to Hawkins her hope that the
negroes went voluntarily from Africa, declaring that
if any force were used to enslave them, she doubted
not it would bring down the vengeance of Heaven
upon those guilty o^ such wickedness, The newly-
discovered coasts of America were also visited by
kidnappers. Few, if any, of the early voyagers scru-
pled to seize the natives, and to carry them home as
slaves. Sir Ferdinando Gorges, so active and so
conspicuous in the early settlement of New England,
bad a number of these captured natives, whom he
claimed as his property, kept under restraint, and
employed as guides and pilots. The Mosaic law,
then recently made familiar by the English transla-
tion of the Bible, and considered high authority on
all questions of right, seemed to countenance this
distinction between Christians and infidels. The
Jews, according to the Mosaic code, could hold their
brethren as servants only for a period of seven years,
or at the utmost, till the next Jubilee, (for it is not
very easy to reconcile the apparently conflicting pro-
visions on this subject in Exodus and Leviticus ;) but
of " the heathen round about," they might buy " bond-
men, as an inheritance for ever." The practice of
the early English settlers in America, and their ideas
of the English law on the subject, corresponded ex-

180

DESPOTISM

acily with these Jewish provisions, indeed would seem
to have been regulated by them. Thus they took
with them, or caused to be brought out, a large num-
ber of indented Christian servants, whose period of
bondage was limited to seven years, and who, till
after the Revolution, constituted a distinct class in
the community. Indeed, of the white immigrants to
America preceding that era, the larger portion would
seem to have arrived there under this servile charac-
ter. But while the servitude of Christians was thus
limited, the colonists supposed themselves justified in
holding negroes and Indians as slaves for life. The
ftrat English colonists arrived in Virginia in 1607. In
1820 a Dutch trading vessel entered James' River
with twenty negroes on board, who were sold to the
settlers. Other similar importations continued to be
made from time to time ; bnt it not being imagined
that any local legislation was necessary to give to
the purchasers of these black servants the right to
hold them and their posterity as bondmen for ever,
more than forty yeaia elapsed before any notice was
taken of slaves by the Virginia statutes, as distinct
from other servants.

It was not in Virginia, but in New England, that
the earliest colonial legislation on the subject of
slavery occurred. The Massachusetts " Body of Lib-
erties," or " Fundamentals," as they were called, first
promulgated in 1641, contain the following provision :
« There shall never be any bond slavery, villeinage,
nor captivity among us, unless it be lawful captives
taken in just wars, and such strangers as willingly sell
themselves^ or are sold, unto us" But in thus giving
an express sanction to negro and Indian slavery, the
freemen of Massachusetts did not conceive themselves
to be running at all counter to the law of England,
to which, by their charter, they were bound to con-
form, though on ecclesiastical points somewhat in-
clined to deviate from it. On the contrary, they sup-
posed themselves to be conforming as well to the

m AMERICA.

181

law of England, as to " the law of God, established
ill Israel." This Massachusetts law, it will be per-
ceived, not only sanctioned slavery, but also the slave-
trade. An American historian, always too much a
panegyrist or an apologist to. be intjpUcitly relied on,
has indeed undertaken to claim for Massachusetts the
honor of having denounced, at that early day, «i8
" malefactors and murderers," those ^' who sailed tc
Guinea, to trade for negroes" — a claim founded upon
a misapprehension of a passage in Winthrop's Jour-
nal. It appears, on the contrary, from other passages
in Winthrop, that "the trade to Guinea for negroes"
was recognized as a just and lawful traffic. New
England vessels, after carrying cargoes of staves to
Madeira, were accustomed to sail to Guinea for
slaves, who generally, as there was little or no de-
mand for them at Boston, were carried to Barba-
does, or the other English settlements in the West
Indies, there to be sold. In the particular case above
referred to, instead of buping negroes, in the regular
course of the Guinea trade, the Boston crew had
joined with some Londoners already on the coast,
and, on pretence of some quarrel with the natives, had
landed "a murderer," — the expressive name of a
small piece of cannon, — ^had attacked a negro village
on a Sunday^ and after killing mc[ny of the inhs^
itants, had made a few prisoners, of whom two boya
fell to the share of the Bostx)nians. A violent quarrel
between the master, mate, and owners, as to the
mutual settlement of their accounts, brought out the
whole history of this voyage before the magistrates,
one of whom presented a petition to the General
Court, charging the master and mate, not with having
"sailed for Guinea to trade for negroes," as the case is
represented, but with the threefold offence of murder,
manstealing, and Sabbath-breaking, — ^the first two
capital, by the Fundamental Laws of the colony, and
all three " capital, by the laws of God." It was right
enough to purchase slaves, but wrong to steal them,
especially on a Sunday, and to commit murder in
16

m

OB8POTISM

doing so. The kidnapped negroes were ordered to be
sent back ; but no other punishment was inflicted, the
court doubting their authority to punish crimes com-
mitted on the coast of Africa.

The honor of having made the first American pro-
test against negro slavery, realiy belongs not to Mas-
aachusetts, but to Roger WUliams and his fellow-
settlers at Piovidence in Khode Island, exiles and
refugees from the colony of Massachusetts because
they had embraced the doctrine of " soul liberty," by
which they signified perfect freedom of opinion in
matters of religion. The people of Providence, think-
ing probably that body liberty was a necessary sup-
plement to soul liberty, enacted a law in 1652, placing
"black mankind" on the same level, with regard to
limitation of service, as white servants, and absolutely
prohibiting perpetual slavery within their territories.
Unfortunately for the honor of Rhode Island, this
law, never in force except in the town of Providence,
presently fell into abeyance; and within a century
not only did negro slavery become common in Rhode
Island, but its inhabitants engaged in the African
trade, for the supply of the other colonies.

In Virginia the ratio of slaves to the white popula-
tion, though for many years not large, was much
greater than in New England; but it was not till
cases arose for which the English common law, as
the colonists understood it, made no provisions satis-
factory to the slave-holders, that any distinct mention
of slavery occurs in the legislation of that colony.
In the course of forty years, by which time the slaves
numbered two thousand in a population of forty
thousand, mulatto children had been born and grown
to manhood. What should be the condition of these
children?

B? the English law, when the fathers were free the
ohil^ren were free also. But this did not suit the
interest of the slave-holders. The mulattoes were
few, ignorant, and helpless, and the Virginia legisla-

m AMERICA.

m

ture, notwithstandiiiff its acknowledged obligation to
conform strictly to llnglish law, did not hesitate to
disregard a great, and well-established doctrine of
that law, and substituting a provision of the civil, that
is, of the Roman code, to enact—that children should
follow the condition of the mother ; and this principle,
thus unwarrantably introduced into Virginia in 1662,
was ultimately adopted, by statute or usage, in all
the British colonies.

Another question, not less interesting to the slave-
holders, presently arose. Of the negroes brought to
"Virginia, some had been converted and baptized, and
this was the case to a still greater extent with those
born in the colony. By what right were these Chris-
Hans held as slaves ?

The law of England, even accxjrding to the colonial
view of it, did not allow the slavery of Christians. It
was only pagans and infidels who could be enslaved.
But the Virginia assembly came to the relief of the
masters ; and with that audacious disregard of all law
and all right except its own good pleasure, by which
slave-holding legislation has ever been characterized,
they enacted, in utter defiance of the English law,
— even their own version of it,— that negroes convert-
ed and baptized should not thereby become free.
This act bears date in 1669. Another act, passed
the same year, in equal defiance of the EngUsh law,
provided, that killing slaves by exteemity of correction
should not be esteemed felony, "since it cannot be
presumed that prepense malice should induce any
man to destroy his own estate."

For reasons of policy or humanity, it had been'pio-
vided that Indians should not be held as slaves,-'<~a
provision, whatever the reason of it, which places the
legislation of Virginia, on this point, in honorable
contrast to that of New England, where the contrary
practice prevailed. But did this prohibition extend
to Indian captives taken in war, elsewhere than in
Virginia, and brought to that colony for sale ?

This question was settled in 1670, by enacting that

184

DESPOTISM

'♦ all servants, no/ being' ChrisHms^ imported by ship-
ping, shall be slaves for their Jives," those imported
by land to serve for a limited time. Freedom had just
been denied to Christian negroes converted in the col-
ony, or born there ; but the assembly did not venture to
lisnrp any such jurisdiction over stranger Christians.

As a necessary pendant to the slave code, the sys-
tem of subjecting the free to disatilities novir also
began. Thus it was enacted in 1670, that negro wo-
men, thougli free, should be rated and taxed as « tith-
ables," that is, should pay a poll tax, exacted in the
case of whites only from the men. Free negroes and
Indians were also disqualified to purchase or hold
white servants.

^ These acts, the legislative basis of slavery in Vir-
ignia, were enacted during the government of Sir
William Berkeley, well known for his famous apos-
trophe — I thank God we have no frr schools nor
printing, and I hope we shall not have ;se hundred
ears; for learning has brought disobedience, and
eresy, and sects ijito the world, and printing has
divulged them; and libels against the best govern-
meni God keep us from both I " — Nor was this wish
uttered in vain. The establishment of slavery secured
its fulfilment Virginia has no free schools to this day;
none, at least, worthy of the name. She has, indeed,
a few printing-presses ; but they are muzzled, gagged,
—effectually restrained from libeb against " the best

Savernraent " — ^for such in that state the oligarchy of
ave-holders is held to be.

The virtuous resolution of Vir^nia on the subject
of Indians did not last long; nor did freedom from
schools and print^pg-presses keep out disobedience and
rebellion. The immediate cause of Bacon's insur-
rection, so famous in the colonial annals of Virginia,
was the refusal of Berkeley to authorize expeditions
against the Indiana, who had lately committed some
depredations. Berkeley preferred a scheme of defence
by forts. The colonists alleged that his interest in
the fur-trade made him too tender of the Indians;

IK AMBB{CA.

185

but a law enacted in 1676, by Bacon's insargent aa-
sembly, might seem to imply, that the eagerness of
the colonista for offensive war was not altogether dis-
interested. Into an act for the prosecution of the
Indian war a provision was inserted, that Indian
prisoners might be held as slaves ; and notwithstand"
ing the repeal, after the suppression of the insurrec-
tion, of all the other of Bacon's laws, this provision
was still continued in force.

In 1682, during Culpepper's administration, the
slave code of Virginia received some additions.
Slaves were forbidden to carry arms, oifensive or
defensive ; or to go off their masters plantation, with-
out a written pass ; or to lift hand against a Chris-
tian, even in self-defence. Runaways, who refosed
to be apprehended, might be lawfully killed. Already
bad the internal slave-trade begun, — ^that trade in
which Virginia still bears so unhappy a part. Ab
yet, however, the colony \v^s purchaser, not seller,
and by a partial repeal of the existing provision in
favor of stranger Christians, facilities fox purchasing
were extended. The assembly enacted that all e&ii'
vants, whether negroes. Moors, mulattoes, or Indians,
(including those bought of the neighboring or other
Indian tribes,) brought into the colony by sea or loud,
whether converted to Christianity or not, prwdded
they were not of Christian pareaU^e <md comtryf
might be held as slaves. Ye^ with all Hob eagerness
for new purchases, the evils of the slave system were
already felt The colony was suffering severely from
an over-production of tobacco ; to such isi degree, that
the poorer free people could scarcely purchase clothes
for themselves j—an over-production to which, as
Culpepper stated, in an official report, ** the buying of
blacks had exceedingly contributed."

In 1691, shortly after the breaking out of thei first
French and Indian war, policy or humanity, *or botii
combined, recovered the mastery, and the slavery of
Indians, sanctioned by statute since the time of
Bacon's rebellion, was now finally abolished. Stich
16*

1^

at least was the interpretation given by the courts of
Virginia, subsequently to the revolution, (see Pallets
4* aL V. MU 4* (tl'i * Henings' and Mumford's Re-
ports, 149,) to an act of this date, repealing all
restraints on traffic with the Indians, and declaring
that trade thenceforth free and open with " all Indiana
whatsoever." But, too ignorant or too helpless to
vindicate their rights, " multitudes of the descendants
of Indians in Virginia," so says Hening, the learned
and laborious editor of the Virginia statutes, " are
still unjustly deprived of their liberty," in spite of
this decision,— one proof, among others, how little
mere legal right, though officiafly declared by the
hig^st tribuuals, avails the feeble and defenceless.

By the Virginia code, as revised in 1705, " all ser-
Tants imported by sea or land, who were not Chris-
tiaji$ their native country, (except Turks and Moors
in amity with her Majesty, and others who can make
due proof of their being free in England, or any
other Christian country, before they were shipped in
<»rder to transportation hither,) shall be accounted and
be slaves^ and as such be here bought and sold, not-
withstanding a conversion to Christianity afterwards;!'
" all children to be bond or free, according to^ the
condition of their mothers." But even in this act,
under which near half the population of Virginia are
etill held as slaves, the original idea, that no Christian
could be reduced to slavery, is still sufficiently ap*
parent In the case of servants newly brought into
the colony, religion, not color, nor race, is made the
sole test of distinction between slavery and indented
service. Whatever may have been the practice, it
is plain enough, that under this act, which con-
tinned unaltered down to the Revolution, and which
still forms the basis of slave property in Virginia, no
negro, even, who was a Christian in his native coun-
try, could, if brought to Virginia, be held there as a
slave.

^ This code of 1705 also provided, that persons con-
vict in England of crimes punishable with loss of

IN AMERICA.

187

Ufe or member, and "all negroes, malattoes, and
Indians," should be incapacitated to hold office in the
colony. White woniea having bastard children by
negroes or muJattoes were to pay the parish fifteen
pounds, or, in default of payment, to be sold for five
years, the child to be bound out as a servant for
thirty-one years. " And for a further prevention of
that abominable mixture and spurious issue, whicL
hereafter may increase in this her Majesty's colony
and dominion, as well by English and other white
men and women intermarrying with negroes and
miiiattoes," as by unlawful connection with them,
it was enacted, that any man or woman intermarry-
ing with a negro or mulatto, bond or free, should be
imprisoned six months and fined ten pounds.— »the
minister celebrating the marriage to be fined also.
Thus early was the bugbear cry of " amalgamation "
raised in Virginia. Similar laws enacted in the
other colonies operated to degrade and keep down the
colored race, and to prevent the institution of slavery
from assuming that patriarchal character, by which,
in other countries, it is greatly softened, and some>
times has been superseded.

Nothing, indeed, is more striking than the different
treatment bestowed by Anglo-American slave-holders,
especially those of the United States, upon their own
children by slave mothers, and the behavior of Dutch,
Spanish, Portuguese, and French slave-holders to-
wards their children similarly begotten. In the alav&p
holding colonies of these latter nations, that white
man is regarded as unnatural, mean, and cruel, who
does not, if bis ability permit, secure for his colored
children emancipation and some pecuniary provision.
Colored children are not less numerous in the United
States ; but there conventional decorum forbids the
white father to recognize his colored offspring at all,
or to make any provision for them. They are still held
and sold as slaves ; and among this unfortunate class
may be found the descendants of more than one
signer of the Beclarati .n of Independence, patriot

^88

DESPOTISM

of the Revolution, leading politician, and presidentid
candidate.

The example of the Jews in their treatment of the
Canaanites, was cited as good authority in all the
English colonies for prohibiting intermarriage with
negroes and Indians; and for denouncing the mix-
ture of races as unnatural and wicked. But no law
could control the appetite of the planters nor prevent
that intermixture which inevitably takes place, when-
ever two races are brought into contact, especially if
one race be held in slavery. That austere morality
(pretending to be religious,) for which the United
States are distinguished above all nations on the face
of the earth, unless indeed the palm in this respect
v-'jight to be yielded to the mother country, has been
obliged, in this case, as in others, to conten* itself, in
defect of conformity to its rules, with cruel grimace,
and a lie acted out. Hypocrisy, is said to be the trib-
ute \/bich vice pays to virtue, — a tribute of which the
religious treasuries of America are full. The vir-
tuous man, — southern church-member, or peradven-
ture minister of the gospel, — expiates his peccadilloes
with his female slaves, by looking on his own children
with cold glances, in which no recognition dwells;
and as a further proof of his austere morals, oppor-
tunity offering, he sells them at auction I

Yet in Virginia, this antipathy to the mixture of
races was not and is not carried so far as in some of
the more southern colonies. The grand child of an
Indian, the great-great grand child of a negro, all
the other links being white, become themselves white
in the eye of the law, and therefore presumably free.

In Maryland slavery had existed from its first set-
tlement ; but the oldest statute on the subject bears
date thirty years afterwards, in 1663, when it was
enacted, " that all negroes and other slaves within this
province, and all negroes and other slaves to be here-
after imported, shall serve during life, and all children
born of any negro or other slave, shall be slaves as

IN AMEHIOA.

189

their fathers were, for the term of their lives." la
1715, however, by which time the negroes held ia
bondage composed a fifth part of the population, this
apparent conformity to the principles of the English
law of villeinage touching the hereditary descent of
servitude, was silei>tly dropped. In that year, upon
occasion of the restoration of the government to the
Calvert family, the laws of Maryland were revised,
and the new code provided, " that all negroes and
other slaves, already imported or hereafter to be im-
ported into this province, and all children now born
or hereafter to be born of such negroes and slaves,
shall be slaves during their natural lives." Upon this
statute rest all the claims of the colonial slave-holding
system of Maryland to a legal foundation.

The " grand model," the first proprietary constitu-
tion of Carolina, the production of the celebrated
Locke, drawn up in 1670, contained the following
clause : " Every freeman of Carolina shall have abso-
lute power and authority over his negro slaves, of
what opinion and religion soeve*." But " the grand
model," in compliance with the repeated and earnest
requests of the colonists, was abrogated in 1693, and
for nineteen years the system of slavery in South
Carolina remained without any legal basis, except
that furnished by the mistaken notions of the colonists
as to the English law. The assembly, however, at
length thought it necessary to provide some statute
authority of their own for holding two thirds of the
population in servitude ; and an act for that purpose,
passed in 1712, provided, " that all negroes, mulattoes,
mestizoes, or Indians, which at any time heretofore
were sold, or now are held or taken to be, or hereafter
shall be, bought and sold for slaves, are hereby declared
slaves, to all intents and purposes ; " with exceptions,
however, in favor of those who have been or shall be,
"for some particular merit, made or declared free,"
and also of such " as can prove that they ought not
to be sold as slaves." This extraordinary piece of

190

DKSPOTISM

legislation, re^nacted in 1722, and again in 1735, was
modified by an act of 1740, as follows : "Ail negroes,
Indians, mulattoes, and mastazoes, (free Indians in
amity with this government, and negroes, mulattoes,
and mustazoes who are now free, excepted,) v/ho now
are or shall hereafter be in this province, and all their
issue and offspring, born or to be born, shall be, and
they are hereby declared to be and remain for ever
hereafter, absolute slaves, and shall follow the con-
dition of the mother, and shall be deemed in law
chattels personal." In all claims of freedom, the
burden of proof was to be on the claimant, and it
was to be always presumed that every negro, Indian,
mulatto, and mestizo is a slave, unless the contrary
appear. The word mestizo seems to be employed
(though sometimes used elsewhere in a different
sense) to designate the mixed Indian blood ; any ad-
mixture, however slight, of negro or Indian blood
being included, according to South Carolina usage,
under the epithets mulatto and mestizo, and carrying
the presumption of slavery with them. This act,
which forms the legal basis, such as it is, of the
existing slave-holding system of South Carolina, was
preceded and followed by all the customary barbarous
enactments of slave codes, which in South Carolina
were carried to a degree of unusual ferocity both in
substance and expression. Yet the South Carolina
assembly seem to have supposed themselves to be le-
gislating within the limits of the English law ; for at
the very same session at which the slave act of 1712
was enacted, the common law of England was de-
clared to be in force in South Carolina.

In North Carolina no colonial act seems ever to
have given a legislative basis to the authority of the
master, which rested, and still rests, upon mere cus-
tom, and the old imaginary right, under the English
common law, to reduce infidels and their descendants
to servitude. So far as relates to the slavery of In-
dians, the Carolinians of both provinces had been from

IN AMERICA.

191

the beginning notorious sinners. They had an irre-
sistible propensity to kidnap the unhappy natives,
and reduce them to slavery. Indeed, one chief ground
of quarrel with the proprietaries of the province, grew
out of eJforts made by them to put a stop to this
iniquity.

Georgia, it is well known, was originally intended
to be a free colony ; and during the eighteen years that
its affairs were administered by the Trustees who had
planted it, slavery was strictly prohibited. But the
vagabonds from the streets of London, (for such were
the English settlers in Georgia,) raised a loud outcry
against this prohibition, ascribing to it the poverty
and slow progress of the colony, the natural result of
their own incapacity and idleness. The famous
Whitefield pleaded with the Trustees in favor of
slavery, under the old slave-trading pretence of propa-
gating, by that means, the Christian religion. The
German Lutherans settled in Georgia long had scru-
ples ; but they were reassured by the heads of their
sect in Germany : " If you take slaves in faith, and
with the intent of conducting them to Christ, the
action wiJl not be a sin, but may prove a benedic-
tion." Thus, as usual, the religious sentiment and
its most disinterested votaries were made the tools of
worldly selfishness, for the enslavement and plunder
of mankind. One of the first acts of the new
government, which succeeded to the authority of the
Trustees, (1752,) was, the repeal of the prohibition of
slavery. It was not, however, till thirteen years after-
wards that the legislature of Georgia reinforced what
they supposed to be the common law on this subject,
by positive enactment. In 1765, they copied the
South Carolina act of 1740 ; excepting, however, from
the stern doom of slavery, not only such negroes,
mulattoes, mestizoes, and Indians as already were free,
but such also as might afterwards become free ; thus
acknowledging a possibility of future manumissions,
which the South Carolina statutes seemed to cut off.

192

DESPOTISM

Such is tho legislation, and all the legislation, by
which it can be pretended that slavery, as it now
exists in the United States, acquired during the
.colonial timea the character and the dignity of a
Legal Institution. Was this legislation valid ? Could
it have the effect to legalize slavery in America ?

As our state legislatures are now restricted in their
powers by constitutions, state and federal, so the
colonial legislatures were restricted in their powers
by the law of England. Contrary to the great prin-
ciples of that law they could not make any acts.
This limitation was expressly declared in the colonial
charters. Thus, for instance, the charter of Maryland
provided, that all laws to be enacted by the provincial
legislature " be consonant to reason, and be not re-
pugnant or contrary, but {so far as conveniently may
be) agreeable to the laws, statutes, customs, and
rights of this our kingdom of England." Similar
provisions are to be found in the charters of Virginia,
Carolina, and Georgia. It is true, that these charters,
except that of Maryland, were surrendered or taken
away, previous to the Revolution. But this proceed-
ing, so far from extendijig the authority of the
colonial legislatures, operated the other way; con-
formity to the law of England being still more strictly
demanded in the royal than in the chartered provinces.
The very commissions of the governors, under the
authority of which alone the legislative assemblies
of the crown (or unchartered) colonies had any ex-
istence, expressly restricted the enactments of those
assemblies to such acts as "were not repugnant, but
as near as may be agreeable, to the laws and statutes
of the kingdom of England." This doctrine of the
restricted powers of the colonial legislatures was
perfectly well established, and it has been repeatedly
recognized by the Supreme Court of the United
States, as well as by the state courts. No lawyer
would pretend that any colonial legislature had pow-
er, for instance, to abolish trial by jury. The limits
of colonial legislative authority may be well exem-

IN AMERICA.

193

plified by a transaction in South Carolina. That
province being violently distracted by disputes be-
tween churchmen and dissenters, in 1704 the church-
men, happening to have a majority of one in the
assembly, nassed an act, by the help of a good quan-
tity of gooa liquor, that none but churchmen should
vote. This act was approved by the proprietaries;
and as the charter of Carolina reserved no negative
to the crown, it thus obtained the form of law. But
the dissenters, indignant at this outrage, sent an agent
to England, on whose petition the House of Lords,
swayed by the eloquence of Somers, pronounced this
disfranchising act unreasonable and contrary to the
laws of England, of which, since the revolution of
1789, the toleration of all regular Protestant sects had
become an established principle; and Q,ueen Anne,
by the advice of the attorney and solicitor-general,
issued a proclamation declaring the obnoxious act
void, because it violated that clause in the charter
which required the laws of the colony not to contra-
dict those of England.

If the colonial legislatures could not abolish trial
by jury ; if, after the toleration of all Protestant sects
had become the law of England, they had no power
to enact laws disfranchising any Protestant — had they
any legal power to establish slavery ?

Certainly not, if slavery was contrary to the law of
England. And that it was contrary to the lav7 of
England we now proceed to show.

And here again, as in the whole of this discussion,
it becomes necessary clearly to distinguish between
law and practice ; between that which might legally
have been done, and that which actually was done
without law, or against it It has already been men-
tioned, that while the last remnants of the old system
of villeinage were disappearing, the nascent maritime
enterprise of England had led to the occasional im-
portation of the pagan natives of other countries,
who were claimed and held as slaves. On the trial
of the impeachment against the judges of the Star
17

194 DESPOTISM

Chamber, ordered by the Long Parliament in 1640,
and reported in Rushworth's CoUectionSy a case was
cited, said to have occmred in the eleventh year of
Elizabeth, (1569,) in -which " one Cartwright brought
a slave from Russia, and would scourge him ; for
which he was questioned, and it was resolved that
England was too pure an air for a slave to breathe
in." But the first recorded English case, in which
the legality of holding men in slavery came in ques-
tion, was that of Butts v. Penni/, decided in 1677, in
the Court of King's Bench. (2 Levintz, 251 ; 3 Keble,
785.) Though in form an action of trover, brought
in London, to recover damages for the taking away
of ten negroes, this case in fact related to a
transaction between the parties in India, {see Har-
grave'a statement on the subject, in his published
argument in the case of Somerset;) and it being
found by a special verdict "that the negroes were
infidels and subjects of an infidel prince, and are
usually bought and sold in India as merchandise,"
and that the plaintiff bought these, and was in pos-
session of them till the defendant took them, the
court held " that being usually bought and sold among
merchants as merchandise, there might be a property
in them sufficient to maintain trover." And the same
doctrine appears also to have been held in the Common
Pleas in 1694, in the case of Gilly v. Clive, (1 Lord
Raymond, 147.) But m 1705, in the case of Smith
v. Gould, (Salkeld, 666; 2 Lord Raymond, 1774,)
which was also an action of trover for a negro, the
case of Butts v. Penny was expressly overruled. " The
common law," said Lord Holt, " takes no notice of
negroes being different from other men. By the com-
mon law, no man can have a property in another but
in special cases, as in a villein, but even in him not to
kill him ; so in captives taken in war, but the taker
cannot kill them, but may sell them to ransom them.
7%ere is no such thing as a slave by the law of Enff-
lami."

Nor was this the only occasion upon which Lord

m AMBRXCA.

195

Holt, one of the most illnstrions names ij English
jurispradence, vindicated this principle of the com*
mon law. In the case of Smith v. Brown Sf Cooper^
(Holt, 495; Salkeld, 666,) the court over which he
presided refused to sustain an action of assumpsit to
recover the price of a slave, " because," said Lord
Holt, " as soon as a negro comes into England he is
free. One may be a villein in England, but not a
slave." It was indeed suggested that the decision
might have been different, had the sale been stated
in the declaration to have been made in Virginia,
with an averment that, by the laws of that country,
negroes were saleable, — ^" for the laws of England,"
said Lord Holt, " do not extend to Virginia : being a
conquered country^ their law is what the king pleases,
and we cannot take notice of it but as set forth."
This, however, was a view of the relation of the
mother country to the colonies, and of the rights of
the inhabitants, the correctness of which (though it
was held down to Lord Holt's time by the English
lawj ers generally) was never admitted by the col-
onists themselves, and which, in the course of the
next half century, as to all the colonies originally
planted by English emigrants, was, by the general
consent of the English bench and bar, given up as
untenable. Nor would even the existence in the crown
of such an arbitrary power of colonial legislation
have afforded any legislative basis for slavery to stand
upon ; for, so far from any authority having been
given by the crown to the colonial legislatures to
legalize slavery, it had been expressly provided in all
the American charters, and in all the instructions to
the royal governors, that no local laws were to be
enacted repugnant to those of England ; so that the
question of the legality of slavery in the colonies
would still come back to the question of its repug-
nancy to English jurisprudence.

Yet notwithstanding the two express decisions above
cited of the Court cf King's Bench, that negro slavery
was a thing unknpwn to the English law, which

196

DESPOTISM

recognized no distinction between negroes and other
men, and which had never admitted slavery except
in the peculiar and now extinct form of villeinage,
negroe3 still continued, as before, to be brought to
England, and there to be held and treated as slaves —
a practice which, with the growth of the African
slave trade and the increase of slaves in the colonies,
became, during the first half of the 18th century,
more and more frequent

The negroes thus imported were too ignorant and
too helpless to vindicate their own rights ; nor was
there any thing in the public sentiment of that gross
age, of which Mammon was the peculiar god, to
check the growth of this new system of slavery.
Some little annoyance seems indeed to have been
occasionally given to the slave-holders, by claims of
jfreedom set up on the ground of baptism, or on the
common law principle of the right of all men to
liberty; but these claims were met, and to a great
extent silenced, by a legal opinion obtained in 1729,
from Sir Philip Yorke and Charles Talbot, (after-
wards Lord Talbot,) in which " they pledged them-
selves to the merchants of London to save them
harmless from all inconvenience " growing out of such
claims ; — an ex parte opinion to which a judicial sanc-
tion seemed to be given by Yorke, then become Lord
Hardwicke, and Chancellor^ by his decision in 1749,
in the case of Pearne v. Lisle, (Ambler, Eeports, 75.)
In that case an application was made for a writ of
ne exeat regno, a prohibition, that is, to Lisle to leave
the kingdom, till he had first paid to the plaintiiT a
certain stipulated rent, due for certain negroes hired
and held as slaves in the island of Antigua, and had
also returned the negroes; which application Hard-
wicke declined to grant, on the ground that the plain-
tiff had a sufficient remedy in the ordinary course of
law. " I have no doub^," he said, " that trover will
He for a negro slave ; it is as much property as any
other thing. The case in Salkeld, 666, [Smith v.
Gould,) was determined on the want of a proper de-

IN AMBRIOA. W7

scription. It vi trover pro urn ^hiope vocat. negro,
(for one Ethiopian called a negr ,) without saying
slave. The being negro did nof ecessarily imply
slave." [Here we have a speciree jf the cool assor^
ance of eminent lawyers in explaining away cases
which they do not venture to overrule, since it is
abundantly apparent from the report of the case in
Salkeld, and still more so from that in Lord Raymond,
that so far from the decision having been grounded
on this alleged defect in description, its very basis was
the fact that the negro was claimed aa a slave. Indeed,
Lord Holt stated in so many words, as the reason of
the decision, that " there is no such thing as a slave by
the law of England."] " The reason said at the bar,"
so Lord Hardwicke proceeded, " to have been given
by Chief Justice Holt as the cause of his doubt,"
[another specimen of bold judicial misrepresentation,
sioce it was no doubt of Lord Holt's, but a solemn
decision of the Court of King's Bench,] "viz., that
the moment that a slave sets his foot in England he
becomes free," [this reason was not given in the case
of Smith V. Gould, but in the other case of Smith v.
Brown Sf Cooper, which is found indeed on the same
page in Salkeld,] " has no weight with it, nor can any
reason be found why they should not be equally so
when they set foot in Jamaica, or any other English
plantation. All our colonies are subject to the laws
of England, although, to some purposes, they have
laws of their own." [On this point doubtless Hard-
wicke had the advantage of Holt ; for the opinions of
the English lavtryers, since the English revolution, had
gradually been brought into coincidence with that of
the colonists, who had all along claimed that the
common law was as much in force in the colonies as
in England.] " There was once a doubt," continued
the judge, " whether, if they were christened, they
would not "jecome ifree by that act ; and there were
precautions taken in the colonies to prevent them
from becoming baptized, till the opinion of Lord
Talbot and myself, then attorney and soiicitor-getiersii,
17'

198

DESPOTISM

was taken on that point We were both of opinion
that it did not at ail alter their state." [The opinion
indeed went much further, but the judge perhaps did
not think it decorous to mention the pledge which he
had given to the London slave-holders to save them
harmless from all claims of freedom.] " There were
formerly villeins or slaves in England, and these of
two sorts, regardant and in gross ; and although tenures
are taken away, there are no laws that have destroyed
servitude absolutely. Tro.er might have been brought
for a villein. If a man were to come into a court of
record and confess himself villein to another, (which
was one way of being a villein,) what the conse-
quence would be I would not say. but there is no law
to abolish it at this time." Such is the reasoning,
and all the reasoning, upon which Lord Hardwicke,
sitting as an equity judge, undertook to overturn two
solemn decisions of the King's Bench on a point of
common law. Villeinage, though it had died away
and disappeared, had not been formally abolished;
and therefore negro slavery, a relation wholly different
in its origin and incidents, agreeing with villeinage
only in the fact of involving personal servitude-— a
relation intxoduced within two or three centuries,
quite within the time of legal memory, and without
any basis or foundation, except the convenience and
gain of certain London merchants — this relation, by
some unexplained transfusion, had inherited all the
legal character of villeinage ! There was no law to
prevent a man from going into court and confessing
himself the villein of another, and therefore— there was
no law to prevent London merchants from holding
negroes in slavery against their will!

The personal character of a judge will often throw
no little light upon his judicial opinions, especially
those in which general principles are involved.
Hardwicke, we are told by Lord Campbell, in his
lAves of the Chancellors, was " the most consummate
judge who ever sat in the Court of Chancery," the
" greatest contributor to the English equity code," —

IN AMERICA.

199

not any very high commendation, perhaps, with those
who have had much exoerience of chancery suits.
But the character of a "consummate judge" has
too often been obtained by a ready ingenuity in giving
plausible reasons to sustain power against right, or
in defect of plausible reason, by a bold efirontery in
trampling under foot the weak and helpless, for the
benefit and convenience of the rich and powerful.
That there was nothing in Lord Hardwicke's personal
character to deter him from such a course, but much
to prompt him to it, Lord Campbell himself shall be
our witness. " His career was not checkered by any
youthful indiscretions or generous errors. He ever had
a keen and steady eye to his own advantage, as well

this last clause ?] Amid the aristocratic connections
which he formed, he forgot the companions of his
youth, and his regard for the middle classes of society,
from which he sprang, cooled down to indiiference.
He became jealous of all who could be his rivals for
power, and he contracted a certain degree of selfish-
ness and hardness of character which excited much
envy [?] and ill will amid the flatteries which sur-
rounded him." His first patron, for whom he assidu-
ously worked, and by whose partial favor he was
brought into nollse, was the Earl of Macclesfield,
that "trafficker in judicial robes, and robber of widows
and orphans,*' who was afterwards impeached and
found guilty of corruption. He then attached him-
self to the Duke of Newcastle, who, in a long political
career, endeavored to make up for personal imbecility
by the freest use of patronage and money. "The
best thing that can be remembered of the chancellor,"
says Horace Walpole, " is his fidelity to his patron ;
for let the Duke of Newcastle betray whom he would,
the chancellor always stuck to him in his perfidy, and
was only not false to the falsest of mankind ! " Such
was precisely the sort of " consummate judge " from
whom might have been anticipated an attempt to
give to the enslavement of man a character of legality.

as to the public good.

mo BESPOT13K

What sympathy for the mere laborers could be felt
by one who, engrossed by his aristocratic connections,
had become coldly indifferent even to the middle
classes, from whence he sprang ?

But in spite of the glosses of Lord Hardwicke, and
the increasing number of slaves in England, there
were still those who felt and those who held that
Lord Holt's version of the common law was the true
one. An attempt having been made in 1762, in the
case of Shanleyv. Hervey, (3 Eden's Reports, 126,) be-
fore Lord Hardwicke' 8 successor as chancellor, Lord
Northington, characterized by Lord Eldon as " a great
lawyer, and very firm in delivering his opinions/'
to appropriate to the use of a pretended master a gift
or legacy to a negro, he indignantly dismissed the
bill with the exclamation- — As soon as a man puts
foot on English ground he is free. A negro may
maintain an action against his master for ill usage,
and may have a habeas corpus if restrained of his
liberty." The famous Granville Sharpe embraced
this opinion with so much enthusiasm as in fact to
devote his life to its vindication. Many cases, through
his agency, were brought before the courts; and
though often foiled, he succeeded at last in obtaining
for this great question a solemn rehearing and a final
decision.

James Somerset, an African by birth, carried to
Virginia as a slave, and purchased there by James
Stewart, had been brought from Virginia to England,
where he refused to serve any longer, in consequence
of which Stewart seized him, and put him on board a
ship to be sent to Jamaica. Being taken before
Lord Mansfield (1771) on a writ of habeas corpus, and
these facts appearing on the return, the question was
referred to the full Court of King's Bench, before which
it was argued at different times by five lavryers re-
tained by Sharpe, while two of the most eminent
counsel of the day (Wallace and Dunning) appeared
on the other side.

Mansfield was endowed with a warmth of senti-

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201

ment, a sympathy with humanity, and a philosophical
spirit, which, in giving a vitality to his legal learning
and abilities, has elevated him high over the heads
of so many other "consummate lawyers." Yet he
was not celebrated either for intrepidity of spirit, or
for any special enthusiasm in behalf of personal liber-
ty. Here was an opportunity for the establishment
of a great principle ; but an opportunity which he did
not court, and from which indeed he strove to escape.
He was not insensible to the wealth and social stand-
ing of the parties interested as slave-holders, and he
attempted to get rid of this case, as he had done of
several similar ones, by urging the settlement of it by
an agreement between the parties. The decisiou
seems indeed to have been once or twice postponed,
to give Stewart an opportunity to act upon the hint,
that if he would manumit Somerset the case might
be ended in that way, without any formal decision,
which Mansfield openly expressed his anxiety to avoid.
If the decision went against the master, it would
overturn the established practice and prevailing ideas
of the last fifty years, backed by the legal opinion of
"two of the greatest men" — such were the terms in
which Lord Mansfield referred to Yorke and Talbot—
"of this or any other time."* But on the other hand
was the extreme difficulty of adopting the relation of
slavery as it existed in the colonies, without adopting
it in all its consequences, many of which were "abso-
lutely contrary to the municipal law of England."
" The setting fourteen or fifteen thousand men " — for
that had been stated by the counsel for the claimant
as the estimated number of negio slaves in England
— " at once loose by a solemn opinion " was " very
disagreeable in the effects it threatened." "Fifty
pounds " — the estimate of Stewart's counsel — " may

• Yet in the course of the argument, he had spoken of their opin-
ion above referred to with no great re^n^ct, a8 a case " upon a pe-
tition in Lincoln's Inn Hall, after dinner, therefore probablj' might
not be taken vnth much accuracy, as he beUeved was not tmusual
at that hour." See LoS'a Eeports.

«

202

BKSpOTISM

not be a high price. Then a loss foliows to the piro-
prietors of about ^8700,000 sterling. How would the
law stand in respect of their settlement, their wages ?
How m'\ny actions for any slight coercion by the
master ? "

But though these prudential considerations made
the timid Mansfield anxious to escape a formal judg-
ment, they did not alter his opinion of the law.
" We cannot, in any of these points, direct the law ;
the law must direct us." " If the parties will have
judgment, fiatjusticia ruat ccelum — ^let justice be done
whatever be the consequence." At the same time he
suggested, as a consolation to the slave-holders, " an
application to parliament, if the merchants think the
question of great commercial concern," as " the best,
and perhaps only, method of settling the question for
the future," — a suggestion, however, upon which, in
the existing state of public sentiment, the London
slave-holders did not venture to act.

At last, after several postponements, as Stewart
declined to terminate the case by manumitting Somer-
set, Mansfield proceeded to render judgment; which
he did very briefly ; and yet, as his peculiar manner
was, in terms sutficiently comprehensive not only to
decide the case before him, but to establish a principle
for the decision of other cases.

" We pay all due attention," he said, " to the opin-
ion of Sir Philip Yorke and Lord Talbot, whereby
they pledged themselves to the British planters for ail
the legal consequences of slaves coming over to this
kingdom, or being baptized, recognized by Lord
Hardwicke, sitting as chancellor," in the case of
Peame v. Lisle. " The only question before us is,
whether the cause on the return is sufficient. K it is,
the negro must be remanded ; if it is not, he must be
discharged. The return states that the slave departed
and refused to serve, whereupon he was seized to be
sold abroad. So high an act of dominion must he
recognized by the law of the comitry where it is wed.
The power of a master over kis slave has been exceed-

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203

ingly different in different courUries. The state of
slavery is of such a natn/re, that it is incapable of being"
introduced on any reasons, moral or political, but only
by positive law, which preserves its force long^ after the
reasons, occasions, and time itself from whence it was
cr&ated, is erased from memory. It is so odious that
nothing" can be suffered to support it but positive law.
Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from
the decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or ap-
proved by the law of England, and therefore the black
must be discharged."

It is very true that this decision is limited in its
terras to the ease of persons claimed as slaves within
the realm of England, that being the particular ease
before the court. It is also true that the counsel for
Somerset, conscious of the pecuniary influence weigh-
ing against their client, and anxious to limit that
influence as much as possible, were very careful not
to question the legality of slavery in the colonies.
But as all the colonial assemblies were specially re-
stricted, either by charter or the royal commissions
under which they met and legislated, to the enactment
of laws not repugnant to those of England, how
could those as:remblies be competent to legalize a
condition, many of the consequences of which were
pronounced by Lord Mansfield " absolutely contrary "
to English law ?— and did it not follow, as one of the
"inconveniences" of that decision, as Hardwickeh&d
suggested it would, that slavery, illegal in England,
was also illegal in the English colonies ?

To evade this conclusion, the omnipotence of par-
liament was invoked, as having, at least by way of
inference and recognition, legalized slavery in Amer-
ica ; for which purpose several acts were cited re-
lating to the African trade, particularly that of 9 and
10 Wa IIL ch. 26; also the act of 1732, for the
speedy recovery of debts in the colonies. The Erst
of these Eicts plainly speaks of negroes as a species
of merchandise, the export of which from the Afirican
eoast in 3ntiah ships was particularly favored, by

204

DESPOTISM

their exemption from a duty of ten per cent, imposed,
for the sustentation of the West African forts, on all
exports from that coast, "negroes excepted." The
great object of the other act was, to make real estate
in the colonies liable to be levied upon for debts the
same with personal property; and as some of the
colonies, to protect the planters against their creditors,
had declared negroes to be real estate, such negroes
too were made by this act seizable for debt along
with the lands to which they were attached. But so
great an innovation upon the common law as the
legalization of negro slavery, is not to be sustained by
a mere statute implication ; especially when the pro-
visions relied upon do not necessarily imply any thing
more than v/hat the long-established common law had
fully recognized. The importation into the colonies,
and the sale there, of servants, to be held for a limited
period, to be esteemed during that period the goods
and chattels of the purchaser, to be sold at his pleas-
ure, and liable to be seized for his debts, was un-
doubtedly permitted by the law of England. Such
servants were regularly imported from England,
Scotland, Ireland, and Germany, in numbers at least
equal to the negroes; nor is there any thing more
than this necessarily implied in the acts above cited.
There is nothing to show that parliament intended to
place Afrlcana in this respect on a different ground
from other men. Such, indeed, would seem to have
been the view taken of these acts by Lord Mansfield.
The exportation of negroes was not limited to Amer-
ica. In the act above referred to for regulating the
African trade, England was mentioned in precisely
the same terms as the colonies, as one of the places
to which African merchandise, including negroes,
might be brought; and the holding of negroes in
slavery, so far as that act goes, was just as much
authorized by it in the one country as in the other.
But though these statutes were cited in Somerset's
case. Lord Mansfield allowed them no weight. And in
the case of Forbes v. Chchranef (2 Barnwell & Cress-

IN AMERICA.

205

well, 443,) decided in 1824 in the Court of King's
Bench, Chief Justice Best expressly stated " that he
did not feel himself fettered by any thing expressed
in either of these acts, [the acts, that is, in relation
to the trade with Africa,] in pronouncing the same
opinion on the rights growing out of slavery as if they
had never passed."

There is indeed a still further distinction as to the
case of those held as slaves in the colonies, apt to be
overlooked in these discussions, but which cannot be
disregarded, at least by those who coincide with
Lords Camden and Chatham and the Continental
Congresses of 1765 and 1774, in their views of colo-
nial and metropolitan relations. Whatever the con-
dition might legally have been of those unfortunate
aliens purchased in Africa as slaves, and brought to
America and sold to the planters; suppose even that
it might have been consonant to English law to hold
them as servants for life, as Blackstone seems to have
imagined ; yet the case was very different as to their
children born in the colonies, who were in every
respect, according to the views above stated, natural-
born subjects of the King of England, and entitled to
all the rights of Englishmen, from which not even
parliament itself, and much less the colonial legisla-
tures, had any power to exclude them. Such was
the ground taken by James Otis, in his famous
pamphlet on Colonial Rig-hts, published (1764) in
anticipation of the Stamp Act, and justly regarded
as the first trumpet blast of the American Revolution ;
in which pamphlet he laid it down as a fundamental
proposition, the basis of all his reasoning, that all the
colonists, whether " black or white," born in America,
were free born British subjects, entitled to all the
essential rights of such.

The decision in Somerset's case is sometimes
spoken of, even by judges on the bench, as having
changed the law of England. But such a view of it
is entirely false. Judgments of courts do not change
the law. They are not the law, but only evidence of
18

206

DESPOTISM

the law. The Somerset ease did not make nor alter
the law of England ; it only freed it from the false
glosses with which ignorance, avarice, violence, and the
practice of two or three hundred years had obscured
it It did but repeat, and now, from the altered state
of the public sentiment, in a more authoritative
and effectual tone, the very declaration which Lord
Holt, three quarters of a century before, had then
ineffectually made,-— that the law of England did not
allow the reducing men to slavery, and did not regard
negroes as any way different, in this respect, from
other men. Such being the fact, there surely existed
no power in any colonial assembly, restricted as all
those assemblies were to the enactment of laws " not
repugnant to those of England," to legalize a con-
dition many of the consequences of which were, in
the words of Lord Mansfield, " absolutely contrary" to
English law.

But it is not by the mere declaration of what the
law is— especially where there is no spirit or dispo-
sition on the part of those in authority to enforce or
even to recognize it — that wrong is ever to be rectified ;
nor has it been in America alone that courts and law-
yers have trampled law as well as justice under foot,
in their zeal to gain the favor and to conform to the
wishes of those possessed yf wealth and of social and
political influence. The American Declaration of
Independence, which took place within a little more
than four yeais after the decision in Somerset's case,
removed the colonies, now become the United States,
from all further control by English tribunals or Eng-
lish authority; but there were several other colonial
dependencies of the British empire, in which, for
more than sixty years after that decision, negro slavery
continued in full energy, too strong, too rampant, for
any English judge to dare to apply to it the principle
of the Somerset case ; since here it was not & (jues-
tion of iG700,000 and fourteen thousand negroes, but
of a sum and a number near a hundred times as
great ; the difficulty of redressing wrongs unfortunate-

IN AMRRICA.

207

ly increasing in something like geometrical proportion
to the number of those whom they crush. Even such
a judge as Chief Justice Best, while giving such au-
thority to the case of Somerset as to hold, (in Forbes
V. Cochrane, above referred to,) that slaves flying from
a Spanish colony, and taking refuge on board a
British ship on the high seas, thereby became free,
was very careful to add, There may possibly be a
distinction between the situation of these persons, and
that of slaves coming from our own islands, for we
have unfortunately recognized the existence of slavery
there, though we have never recognized it in our own
country." Indeed, he specially desired thai nothing
he might P^iy in that case [and he said several veiy
fino things] " might be considered as trenching on the
local rights of the West India proprietors to the
services of their slaves in that country."

Nor when, at last, the question of the legality of
slavery in the colonies was distinctly raised before an
English court, (unfortunately not a court of common
law,) did the slave-holders fail to find, in the person
of Lord Stowell, another "consummate judge," not
Jess ready than Lord Hardwicke had been, in his day,
to give to a cruel and oppressive custom all the
character and attributes of a solemn legislative au-
thority. The case of Tlie Slave Grace, (2 Haggard's
Admiralty Reports, 106,) decided in 1827, is indeed
most instructive, as showing to what extent your
"consummate lawyer" will go, on behalf of the
interests, or what he esteems such, of property and
commerce, no matter at what expense of human
agony, and disregard of the plainest principles of
justice. Set aside the state of Mississippi, under the
chief justiceship of the notorious Sharkey, and tJbe
circuits of Judges Grier and Curtis, of the United
States Supreme Court, and it would be impossible to
match that case in all the American Reports. Indeed .
the main point decided in it has been ruled the other
way in some half dozen American slave-holding
states, in all, in fact, Mississippi excepted, in which

208

DESPOTISM

the point has been directly raised. For it is to be
noted, that, lantil quite recently, the courts even of the
slave-holding states have exhibited no little alacrity
in giving freedom to individuals, and even to families
claimed to be held as slaves, speaking out in such
cases very warmly for liberty, and exhibiting evident
gusto and satisfaction in knocking off the fetters. It
J has only been in cases likely to prove too sweeping
as precedents, cases involving principles comprehen-
sive enough to give freedom to large numbers, that
this judicial tendency in favor of liberty has been
checked. The case above referred to was that of a
girl born in slavery in the Island of Antigua. She had
been brought to England, but whether from ignorance
or want of inclination had failed to claim her liberty
there, and had returned to Antigua, where she was
still held as a slave. The circumstance, however, that
she had been in England, was presently set up as
having made her free ; and since the local courts would
not recognize the claim, to give her and others in her
condition the chance of an English adjudication, with-
out the heavy expenses of an ordinary appeal, (if
indeed it were possible, by the ordinary course of
appeal, to carry such a case to England,) she was
libelled in the Vice Admiralty Court of Antigua, as
having been introduced into that island as a slave,
contrary to the acts abolishing the slave trade ; and
the local admiralty judge having decided against her,
the case came before Lord Stoweli by appeal. It was
but a decent regard for appearances for an English
judge in Lord Stowell's position, and especially one
about to make such a decision as he did, to indulge
in some flourishes oa the subject of liberty, which his
lordship did very cheaply, and with a sort of judicial
demagoguisra sufficiently common both in England
and America, by breaking out into a burst of indig-
nation that a person claiming to be free should sufi'er
herself to be libelled as an illegally introduced slave !
— when, without resorting to any ::uch humiliating
method of vindicating her rights, she had nothing

2N AMERICA.

to do but to claim to be free, and to act as such
As if such a claim made in xYntigua, as it then was,
would have availed poor Grace! As if my lord did
not perfectly well know why a procedure in the
Admiralty Court had been resorted to !

Stowell had gained the reputation of a " consum-
mate judge," by a series of learned and ingenious
decisions, by which, during the war between France
and England, he had zealously, and, according to a
common enough view of such matters, patriotically la-
bored to secure to the merchants of England a much
coveted monopoly of ocean commerce — an object
which he had accomplished by giving to a few ques-
tionable old precedents, and especially to an arbitrary
rule introduced by England during the war of 1766,
the character of the Law of Nations, and on that
ground, justifying the wholesale capture and plunder
of American and other neutral vessels, trading be-
tween France and her colonies. As was natural
enough for such a judge, he did not at all share in the
sentiment then fast spreading in England against
negro slavery ; indeed, he was eager to give to that
crumbling institution all the support of his profession-
al reputation. Yet he felt obliged to admit, however
good a thing slavery might be, that the practice of
dragging back into it those who had once enjoyed the
blessings of freedom, had been attended by lamenta-
ble consequences. '* Persons, though possessed of in-
dependence and affluence, acquired in the mother
country, have, upon a return to the colonies, been held
!.nd treated as slaves, and the unfortunate descend-
ants of these persons, if born within the colony, have
come slaves into the world, and, in some instances,
have suffered all the consequences of real slavery."
Yet in the eyes of such a man as Stowell, what
were these agonies of oppressed humanity in compe-
tition with the necessity of giving to the holders of
property a sentiment of security, and especially to
the holders of property in men, attacked at that mo-
ment by so many wicked or thoughtless aboiitioniBts ?
18*

210

—•for it was in the midst of the anti-slavery agitation
in England, that this judgment was rendered.

Yet, if Grace had left England a free British sub-
ject, as the decision in Somerset's case would seem to
imply, by what process, on landing in Antigua, had
she been transfci.ned into a slave? The case of
Somerset was directly opposed to the decision which
Stowell's antecedent and present associations and
opinions had predetermined him to make ; and, there-
fore, it was necessary to explain that decision away.
That Somerset had been properly discharged, he did
not venture to deny, but ihe reasons given by Lord
Mansfield for that discbarge he set aside altogether.
Putting those reasons aside, that case, according to
Lord Stowell, went no further than this: " The slave
continues a slave, though the law of England re-
lieves from the rigor of that code while he is in Eng-
land, and that is all that it does." All that had been
said about a slave not being able • ^^reathe in Eng-
land, was a mere flourish of rhe t ^ as soon as
Grace returned to Antigua, her ma^; ed from the
annoying interference of the Englisii .aw, regained
all his rights !

But supposing that to be so, yet by what law of
Antigua was Grace held as a slave? The legislature
of Antigua had no power to make laws repugnant
to those of England ; and not only had they no power,
but taking it for granted that slavery was recognized
by the common law, they had allowed it to rest on
that basis alone. Not only was there no statute cf
Antigua expressly authorizing the slavery of negroes,
but by a statute passed in 1705, and never repealed,
the common law of England was declared to be the
law of that colony, except when altered by written
laws of the island, and " all customs and pretended
customs and usage, contradictory thereto," were pro-
nounced "illegal, null, and void." Here was fresh
and urgent occasion for attacking the reasoning of
Lord IMUinsfield in Somerset's case ; for where, so far
as Antigua was concerned, was that basis of positive

IN AMERICA.

211

law which he had demanded as the oniy cne upon
which so " odious " an institution could be made to
stand? — an institution which he had pronounced
incapable of being introduced upon any reasons moral
or political, but only by positive law.

Lord Hardwicke, in his attempt to legalize slavery,
had seemed disposed to represent it as a mere con-
tinuation of the system of villeinage. Lord Stowell
did not fail to perceive the weakness of that position ;
for if villeinage was too odious a system to stand
against the public sentiment even of the fifteenth
century, how could any mere copy or imitation of it
in the shape of negro slavery be expected to be tol-
erated in the nineteenth? Alarmed apparently lest
the same strict constructions and legal principles
which had operated to abolish villeinage might be
brought to bear against the enslavement of negroes,
he labored to distinguish and exalt that " as p irt of a
system extending into foreign countries ana trans-
marine possessions," and therefore not to be subject-
ed to the narrow constructions and local humanities
of English jurisprudence. The English sailors have
a proverb, " No Sunday off soundings," and exactly
in the spirit of that proverb seem to be conceived
many of the decisions of the English Admiralty Courts,
and indeed much of the foreign policy of Great Britain,
of which the Chinese opium war may be cited as a
flagrant instance. Yet the Law of Nations, a mantle
wide enough, as it proved in Lord Stowell's hands, to
cover such a multitude of wrongs, could not by itself
alone sustain slavery in an English colony. In the
particular case of Antigua, it became necessary not
only to set aside the reasons given by Lord Mans-
field for his decision in the Sombrset case, but to
take issue on the very turning point of those reasons.
Lord Stoweli therefore, under the form of modestly
questioning, proceeded to deny, point blank, the fun-
damental proposition of Lord Mansfield, that to up-
hold slavery some " positive law " must be shown
for it. " Ancient custom," so he suggested, " is gen-

212

DESPOTISM

erally recognized as a just foundation of all law."
" A great part of the common law itself, in all its re-
lations, has little other foundation than this same
custom." " That villeinage which is said to be the
prototype of slavery, had no other origin than ancient
custom." And on the strength of these observations,
he held slavery to be legalized in Antigua by a
usage not two hundred years old, (since Antigua was
first settled in 1632,) and though the local statutes of
the island, coinciding in this particular with the met-
ropolitan authority, expressly denied any validity to
any usage not conformable to the law of England !

These ideas, upon which Lord Stowell thus at-
tempted to base the legality of negro slavery in the
colonies, and which would just as well have sustained
it ill England, though not unusual on both sides of
the Atlantic, involve, however, a total ignorance or
disregard of the perfectly well established doctrine of
the English courts as to the nature and origin of law.
According to that doctrine, there are only two possi-
ble sources of law; viz., 1st, enlightened reason,
equity, natural justice) and 2dly, positive legis-
lation. The character and force of law is never con-
ceded to customs and usages unsustained by positive
enactments, except so far as they appear to corre-
spond to the dictates of enlightened reason, equity,
and natural justice, and not to contradict any posi-
tive law. When the common lawyers first began to
consider law in a systematic and scientific point of
view, they found, indeed, the institutions of the state,
and the proceedings, maxims, and methods of the
courts, to be principally based upon certain ancient
usages, as to the origin of which no record or memo-
rial existed. But whatever the historical fact might
have been, (as to which we have no resource beyond
probable conjecture,) the English courts of common
law never based the authority of these ancient usages,
institutions, and maxims on custom, or the mere lapse
of time during which they had prevailed, nor on the
inconvenience of disturbing them. On the other

IN AMERICA.

213

hand, they constantly represented these usages and
institutions, including among the rest the preroga-
tives of the king, the authority of parliament, the
jurisdiction of the courts, the privileges of the peers,
the rights of the commons, and the servitude of the
villeins, as being founded, in the words of Lord
Mansfield, on " positive law " — that is, on formal stat-
utes and precise enactments, of which, however, from
the lapse of time and the dilapidation of records, no
memorial any longer existed, except in the general
usage of the realm and the memory of the courts.
But thus to invest a usage or institution with the
character of "positive law," (which the courts held
themselves bound to carry out without stopping to
inquire into its justice, expediency, or reasonable-
ness, of which the legislature was admitted to be the
sole authoritative judge,) that usage or institution
must, like the peerage, villeinage, or the rights of pri-
mogeniture, be traceable back to a time beyond the
period of legal memory, which period was held by
"the courts to commence with the reign of Richard
I., A. D. 1189, very few records of an earlier date
being in existence. As to customs and usages of a
more modern date, the origin of which could be
shown, they must depend exclusively for their sanc-
tion upon their reasonableness, — their conformity,
that is, to natural equity and justice, and to an en-
lightened view of the public welfare ; and it was still
further necessary that they should not conflict with
any rights already established by law, that is,
that they should conform to the general policy of the
realm.

Undoubtedly the modern common law consists to a
great extent of modern customs introduced by the
growing exigencies of society, and confirmed and
sanctioned by the courts. Nobody ever did more, nor
indeed any thing near so much, as Lord Mansfield
himself, thus to amplify and enrich the common law,
grafting upon it the best portions of the civil law
and of the commercial codes of modern Europe. But

214

DESPOTISM

negro slavery being an institution neither reasonable,
just, nor tending to the good of society, nor to the
mutual benefit of the parties concerned, and being
moreover, in many of its consequences, " absolutely
contrary" to English law, it was impossible for Lord
Mansfield to hold eithei: that the pecuniary con-
venience of the London merchants, or that the two
or three hundred years during which such slavery had
prevailed, could make it legal. And if negro slavery
could not be legalized by mere usage in England,
neither could it be so legalized in the colonies. That
which the colonial assemblies had no power to do di-
rectly, could not be done indirectly by the mere act
of the inhabitants. Even admitting that negro sla-
very, as Lord Stowell seems strongly disposed to argue,
though a bad and unreasonable custom in England,
was a good and reasonable one in the colonies, — in fact
he secretly thought that slavery was a good custom
every where; nor on any other assumption could it
have been logically possible to render the judgment
which he did;— yet even that admission could not
alter the case; because whether good or bad, yet
being an institution "repugnant" to the law of Eng-
land, neither the legislation of the assemblies nor the
usage of the planters could give to it, in the colonies,
the character of law.

The difference between Lord Mansfield and Lord
Stowell is, it will be perceived, absolute and funda-
mental. According to Lord Mansfield and the com-
mon lawyers, injustice never can be clothed with the
character of law by mere usage, however long con-
tinued, nor in any way, except by some positive act
of the governing power. Some legislator must be
found on whom the responsibility of such injustice
can be fixed. Some positive law must be pointed
out by which this privileged wrong is expressly and
plainly authorized in its whole extent. Here is surely
a great check to oppression, the greatest perhaps
which existing circumstances admit of— a check which
Lord Stowell and the lawyers of his school seek to

IN AMliRiCA.

215

break down. Besides the government openly legis-
lating, and thus in the face of public opinion assum-
ing the responsibility for whatever it enacts, the dread
authority of making unjust laws is to be conferred
in addition upon private interest working secretly in
the dark ! Whatever advantages superior force and
cunning may, as in the case of negro slavery, have
been able to take and to keep for a generation or two
over weakness and ignorance, shall thereby become
law I Surely a most alarming doctrine, tending to
create the most terrible of tyrannies, infinitely more to
be dreaded, infinitely more fruitful in wrong than
crime and violence ever could be if compelled to
show themselves and to act openly in the face of the
world! No other comparison will suit such legisla-
tion but that of the snake swallowing down by im-
perceptible degrees his crushed and slavered victim.
^ This doctrine of the power of possession and usage
to give legal validity to slavery is the natural conse-
quence of confounding men with things. With re-
spect to things, that which the peace of the community
chiefly requires, that in which the interests of com-
merce are concerned, is, that every thirty should have
a certain definite owner; and therefore public con-
venience imperatively demands that the neglect, for
a certain period, to vindicate one's claim to the prop-
erty of a thing should be esteemed a relinquishment
of that claim in favor of the person already in posses-
sion. But this doctrine can have no application
whatever to the case of men, in whom the English
law does not admit any power to convey away or sur-
render up even their own liberty, and still less that
of their unborn children ; and whom therefore no
mere lapse of time can ever bar from claiming their
personal freedom whenever they feel the impulse to
do so.

In the particular case of the British slave-holding
colonies, it may have been very true, as Lord Stowell
suggests, (and the same idea is dropped also by Chief
Justice Best in the case of Forbes v. Cochraney) thai

216

DESPOTISM

a sovereign state like England, looking quietly on,
and allowing slavery to prevail without law and
against law in her colonies, was quite as guilty of
the wrong as the colonies themselves, if not indeed
more so. That might have been a very good reason
why the act of parliament about which Lord Mans-
field had spoken, (though perhaps in a somewhat dif-
ferent sense,) when it came at length to be enacted —
and its passage was probably hastened by Lord
Stowell's decision — took upon the mother country
a large share of the burden of the abolition of sla-
very. And the same reasoning might be forcibly
urged as between the slave states and the free states
of our American confederacy. But the question of
the relative guilt of those who trampled on the weak
and of those who connived at it, and of the distribu-
tion between them of the burden of restitution, can-
not in any way affect the legal status of those who,
in the mean time, are deprived of their rights ; nor can
any distribution of the blame of it give to that dep-
rivation any of the qualities of legality.

Overlooking this undeniable fact, the apologists
for American slavery, not content with insisting that
the mother country connived at, and indeed positive-
ly authorized, its original introduction, have gone still
further, and have boldly asserted that slavery was
forced upon the colonies by the mother country,
against their will, and in spite of their efforts to pre-
vent it. Bancroft, in his History, has labored, with
his usual patriotic partiality, to give color to this
charge, which originated with Jefferson, and which
made its first appearance in the declamatory intro-
duction to the first constitution of Virginia. Jeffer-
son wished to repeat it, in a still more direct and em-
phatic form, in the Declaration of Independence ; but
it was rather too much to ask the delegates from
Georgia to denounce the slave-trade as " a cruel war
against human nature, violating its most sacred
rights of life and liberty." Having struggled against,
and finally defeated, the attempt to make her a free

IN AMERICA. 217

community, how could Georgia charge the mother
country with forcing upon her that " execrable com-
merce," the slave-trade? Jefferson hated Britain, he
hated slavery, and he wished to bring these hatreds
into juxtaposition ; but to do so required a very ex-
cited imagination. Had any colony ever prohibited
the introduction of negroes; had any colony ever
enacted that negroes should stand on the same
ground as white servants, and be discharged at the
end of seven years' service ; and had the king vetoed
such enactments — he might then have been justly
charged with forcing slavery on the colonies. But
no colony ever passed any such law*, or thought of
doing so. The vetoes on which Jefferson relied were
of a very different sort. The colonies, especially
those of the south, wished to raise a part of their
revenue by duties on imports, with the double object
of lightening the burden of direct taxation, and giv-
ing protection to domestic manufactures. Among
the chief imports into the southern colonies were
negroes. But in seeking to impose a tax of a few
pounds on each negro imported, the colonial legisla-
tures, as a general thing, no more intended to abolish
or even to restrict slavery or the slave-trade, than
Congress, when it agreed to the square yard mini-
mum duty upon cotton goods, intended to abolish or
restrict the use of muslins and calicoes. The Eng-
lish merchants, in whose hands the commerce of
the colonies was, were then, as now, advocates of
free trade; they complained of these duties, the
one on negroes among the rest, as an interference
with their commercial rights; and they had interest
enough with the British government to procure a
standing instruction to all the royal governors not
to consent to such sort of taxes. Finally, however,
the matter was compromised by allowing the colonial
legislatures to impose such duty as they pleased on
negroes imported, provided it were made payable,
not by the seller, the English trader, but by the buyer,
the colonist planter.

19

218

DESPOXiaM

It seems, then, to be very plainly made out, that at
the commencement of our Revolution, slavery had
no legal basis in any of the North American colonies *
It existed^ as many other wrongs existed, in all of
them. In many of the colonies, the assemblies, under
a mistaken view of the law of England or of their own
powers, or through wilful disregard of acknowledged
restraints, had attempted to give to it the sanction of
law. But by that same law of England, which the
colonists claimed as their birthright, and to which
they so loudly appealed against the usurpations of
the mother country, all such statutes were void. The
negroes were too ignorant to know their rights, and
too helpless to vindicate them. They could not ap-
peal to England, like the South Carolina dissenters,
nor had they a powerful party there to support their
rights ; but, legally speaking, they were all free ; and
this, as to all of them at least who had been born in
the colonies, was fully admitted, as has been already
noticed, eight years previous to the decision in Som-
erset's case, by James Otis, in his famous tract on
the " Rights of the Colonists."

It remains, then, to inquire, whether that Revolu-
tion, which we are accustomed to extol as an out-
burst of liberty, a memorable vindication of the
Rights of Man, did, in fact, give to slavery a legal
character; whether men, entitled by British law to
their freedom, because slaves under the State and Fed-
eral Constitutions ; and this is the question which we
propose to discuss in the following section.

♦ Por further details on this subject, and an account of the partic-
ular incident upon which JeiTerson's charges seem to have been
chiefly baaed, see Hildreth's Hittory of the United States, vol. ii.
chap. sxTii.

m AMERICA.

219

SECTION III.

Slavery in the States, and under the Federal Con^

stitution.

We examined in the previous section the preten-
sions ^ of slavery— as it existed in the British North
American colonies prior to the Revolution which con-
verted those colonies into the United States of
America — to rest upon a legal basis. We found, in
most of the colonies, statutes of the colonial assem-
blies of an earlier or later date, and in all of them, a
practice assuming to legalize the slavery of negroes,
Indians, and the mixed race ; to make that slavery
hereditary wherever the mother was a slave ; and, as
to all claims of freedom, to throw the burden of proof
on the claimant. But we also found that this prac-
tice, and all the statutes attempting to legalize it,
were in direct conflict with great and perfectly well
settled principles of the law of England, which was
also the supreme law of the colonies; principles
which the colonial legislatures and the colonial courts
had no authority to set aside or to contradict;
and thence we concluded that American slavery,
prior to the Revolution, had no legal basis, but exist-
ed as it had done in England for some two centuries
or more prior to Somerset's case—a mere usurpation
on the part of the masters, and a mere wrong as re-
spected those alleged to be slaves.

Nor is this view of the matter by any means ori-
ginal, or at all of recent origin. It was taken and
acred on and made the basis of emancipation in
Massachusetts, while the British nile still prevailed
in America. The best account, indeed, almost the
only original account of the abolition of slavery in
Massachusetts, is contained in a paper by Dr. Bel-
knap, printed in the Massachusetts Historical Collec-
tions. Dr. Belknap states, that about the time of the
commencement of the revolutionary disputes, sev-

DESPOTISM

eral opponents of slavery " took occasion publicly to
remonstrate against the inconsistency of contending
for our own liberty, and at the same time depriving
other people of theirs." Nathaniel Appleton and
James Swan, merchants of Boston, distinguished
themselves as writers on the side of liberty. " Those
on the other side generally concealed their names,
but their arguments were not suffered to rest long
without an answer. The controversy began about
the year 1766, and was renewed at various times till
1773, when it was very warmly agitated, and became
the subject of forensic disputation at the public Com-
mencement in Harvard College."

So far, at least, as concerned the further impor-
tation of negroes and others as slaves," the subject
was introduced also into the General Court ; but nei-
ther Bernard, Hutchinson, nor Gage would concur in
any legislation upon it. " The blacks," says Belknap,
" had better success in the judicial courts. A pam-
phlet containing the case of a negro who had accom-
panied his master from the West Indies to England,
and had there sued for and obtained his freedom, was
reprinted" at Boston, in 1771, "and this encouraged
several negroes to sue their masters for their freedom,
and for recompense of their services after they had
attained the age of twenty-one years." "The ne-
groes collected money among themselves to carry on
the suit, and it terminated favorably. Other suits
were instituted between that time and the Revolu-
tion, and the juries invariably gave their verdict in
favor of liberty." The old fundamental law of Mas-
sachusetts authorizing the slavery of Indians and
negroes was no longer in force; it had fallen
with the first charter. Under the second charter no
such statute had been reenacted, but slai^ery had con-
tinned by custom, and had apparently been recog-
nized by the statutes of the province, as a legal rela-
tion. " The pleas on the part of the masters were,
that the negroes were purchased in open market, and
bills of sale were produced in evidence; that the

IN AMERICA.

laws of the province recognized slavery as existing in
it, by declaring that no person should manumit his
slave without giving bond for his maintenance, &c.
On the part of the blacks it was pleaded, that the
royal charter expressly declared all persons born or
residing in the province to be as free as the king's
subjects in Great Britain; that by the law of Eng-
land, no man could be deprived of his liberty but by
the judgment of his peers ; that the laws of the prov-
ince respecting an evil existing, and attempting to
mitigate or regulate it, did not authorize it ; and on
some occasions the plea was, that though the slavery
of the parents be admitted, yet that no disability of
that kind oould descend to the children." " The
juries invariably gave their verdict in favor of lib-
erty ; " nor does it appear that these verdicts were in
any respect inconsistent with the instructions of the
judges as to matter of law.

The blow thus dealt at slavery in Massachusetts
might perhaps have been repeated in other colonies ;
but before there was time for any thing of the sort,
the Revolution occurred, and new governments
stepped in to take the places of the old ones. This
brings us back to the question started at the close of
the preceding section : Did the new governments,
established at the Revolution, do any thing, or could
they do any thing, to give an additional character of
legality to the institution of slavery ?

Let us begin with the commonwealth of Virginia.
The convention of delegates and representatives from
the several counties and corporations which assumed
the responsibility of framing a new government for
that state, very properly prefaced their labors by set-
ting forth a Declaration of Rights, as its " basis and
foundation." This Declaration of Rights, bearing
date June 12, 1776, announced, among other things,

pendent, and have certain inherent rights, of which,
when they enter into a state of society, they cannot by

" that all men are by nature

19"

222

»E8POTi3M

any compact deprive or divest their posterity ; name-
ly, the enjoyment of life and liberty, wiih the means
of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing
and obtaining liappiness and safety." Upon "the
basis and foundation " of this Declaration of Rights,
the convention proceeded to erect a " constitution, or
form of government," in which it was provided that
the " common law of England," and all statutes of
parliament not local in their character, made in aid
of the common law prior to the settlement of Vir-
ginia, "together with the several acts of the Gen-
eral Assembly of this colony now in force, so far as
the same may consist with the several ordinances,
declarations, and resolutions of the general conven-
tion, shall be considered as in full force until the
same shall be altered by the legislative power of this
colony." But this provision could give no validity
to the colonial acts for the establishment of slavery ;
in the first place, because those acts, legally speaking,
were not in force, and never had been, being void
from the beginning, enacted in defiance of great
principles of the English law, by which the powers
of the colonial assembly were restricted ; and in the
second place, because they did not and could not
consist with the above quoted "declaration," laid
down by the convention itself as "the basis and
foundation " of the new government.

Immediately after the adoption of this constitution,
provision was made for revising the laws of Virginia,
and a committee was appointed for that purpose;
bat nothing was done till 1785, when several bills
prepared by the committee of revision were sanctioned
by the assembly and enacted as laws. In one of
these acts it was provided, "that no persons shall
henceforth be slaves in this commonwealth, except
8uch as were so on the first day of this present ses-
sion of assembly, and the descendants of the females
of them." This act, embodied into the codification
of 1792, still remains in force; and through it all
legal titles to slave property in Virginia must be

IN AMERICA.

22$

traced. But in 1785, there were no persons legally
held as slaves in Virginia. The practice on this sub-
ject, and the acts of the colonial assembly which
countenanced that practice, were contradictory to the
law of England, always binding on the colonial
assembly, and specially adopted by the revolutionary
government as the law of Virginia; and contra-
dictory, also, to those general principles and that
declaration of natural rights specially adopted as
"the basis and fonndation " of the new government.

The convention which framed the constitution of
Virginia was far from conferring, or from claiming
any power to confer, on the assembly any authority
to reduce any of the inhabitants of that state to a
condition of slavery. The assembly was far from
claiming the possession of any such power, or from
attempting to add any thing to the legal basis upon
which slavery rested prior to the Revolution. It re-
mained then what it had been in colonial times, a
mere usurpation, without any legal basis ; a usurpa-
tion in direct defiance of the Declaration of Rights,
upheld by mere force and terror, and the overwhelm-
ing power and influence of the masters, without law
and against law.

The convention of Maryland, (which upon the
breaking out of hostilities with the mother country
had displaced the proprietary government,) following
in the footsteps of Virginia, adopted, on the 3d of
November, 1776, a Declaration of Rights, the intro-
ductory part of a new constitution, in which they
declared, " that all government of right originates from
the people ; is founded in compact only, and is con-
stituted solely for the good of the whole ; " and " that
the inhabitants of Maryland are entitled to the com-
mon law of England ; to all English statutes appli-
cable to their situation, passed before the settlement
of Maryland, and introduced and practised on in the
colony ; and also to all acts of the old colonial assem-
bly in force " won the Ist of June, 1774. But the

acts of assembly sanctioning and legalizing slavery
were not " in force " on the 1st of June, 1774, nor at
any otner time. They never had been in force; they
were contrary to the law of England, to a corre-
spondency with which the colonial assembly was
specially limited by charter. Yet it is on these void
acts that the supposed legality of slavery in Mary-
land still continues to rest.

The constitution of North Carolina, formed Decem-
ber 17, 1776, contains not one single word respecting
slavery. That institution did not receive even the
semblance of support derived in Virginia and
Maryland from the continuation in force of the colo-
nial acts; for no act of the colonial assembly of
North Carolina had ever attempted to define who
were or might be slaves. Nor was any such attempt
rhade by the newly-established assembly. Slavery
remained in the state of North Carolina what it had
been in the colony,- — a mere custom, a sheer usurpa-
tion, nox. sustained by even the semblance of law.

Neither the first constitution of South Carolina,
adopted in March, 1776, nor the second constitution,
adopted March, 1778, contains a single word attempt-
ing to legalize slavery, nor even any clause contin-
uing in force the old colonial acts. But in February,
1777, in the interval between the two constitutions,
an act of assembly revived and continued in force
for five years certain of those acts, among others the
act of 1740, on the subject of slavery, of which a
synopsis was given in the preceding section ; and in
1783, this act was made perpetual. But the act of
1740 was void from the beginning, by reason of nu-
laerous contradictions to the law of England which
the colonial assembly of South Carolina had no
power to enact into law. If, then, the reviving acts
erf 1777 and 17^ are to have any validity, they must
be considered siH origfinal acts, subjecting half the
fkjpaktion of Sotith Carolifta to perpetual rfavery.

IN AMEHfCA.

235

Had the assembly of South Carolina any authority
to pass such acts? Has it any such authority at this
moment? Could the South Carolina democrats,
having a majority in the assembly, pass a valid act
for sailing all the whigs into perpetual slavery ? or
all inhabitants of Irish descent? or all white men not
freeholders ajid not possessed of visible property? or
all citizens of Massachusetts who might land on her
hospitable coast?

We must always remember, in considering ques-
tions of this sort, that not the federal government
only, but the state governments, also, are govern-
ments of limited powers. The sovereign power ia in
the people, or that portion of it possessed of political
rights ; the holders of offices created by the state con-
stitutions possess no authority not specially conferred
on them by those constitutions. Admit, for the sake
of the argument, thut tne sovereign people of South
Carolina are omnipotent, and can give the character
of law to the most atrocious wrongs ; yet, surely, no
state legislature can exercise any such authority, un-
less it be expressly delegated. But the constitutions
of South Carolina delegated no such power; and
a power in a state legislature to reduce, at its pleas-
ure, to the condition of perpetual servitude, any
portion of the inhabitants of a state, and that not for
public but for private uses, is hardly to be presumed
as one of the ordinary powers of legislation, at least
in a state which, in the solemn act of separation
from the mother country, had united in declaring
that all men are born free and equal, and that life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are inalienable
rights.

The first constitution of Georgia, formed in Feb-
ruary, 1777, contains no allusion to slavery. The
legislative power of the assembly is restricted to
" such laws and regulations as may be conducive to
the good order and well being of the state." Unsup-
ported by any new authority, the Byatem of islaveiy

DESPOTISM

Was left in Georgia, as in the other states, to rest on
such legal basis as it might have had during colonial
times. The rottenness of that basia was not per-
ceived by the state legislatures nor by the state courts.
Their preconceived prejudices, their unwillingness to
look into the matter at all, kept them blind to it;
but their blindness, their ignorance, their mistakes,
could not alter the law, nor make that legal which in
fact was not so.

There was, indeed, the best of reasons why none
of the States— however several of them might be will-
ing to leave to slavery such character of legality as
it had acquired from colonial legislation — should have
ventured upon any direct attempts, by virtue of their
newly-assumed powers, to bestow upon it a new and
original character of legality. For, however jurists
and courts of law may have admitted a legal omnipo-
tence in governments, the people of the United States,
in rising against the mother country, and establishing
themselves as a separate nation, had expressly re-
nounced any such claims. Not to mention particu-
lar State Bills of Rights, their joint Declaration of
Independence — that public and oflicial exhibition of
rfeasona for the steps they had taken in breaking up
their union with Great Britain— proceeded on the
very ground that men possess certain inherent and
anaiienable Rights, including life, liberty, and the pur-
suit of happiness — ^rights which no government has
authority to take away, unless, indeed, in the way of
punishment for crimes — and any deliberate and con-
tinuous attempt to invade which, justifies renistance
even unto death. With what face could governments
which had just made such a declaration of principles
proceed to enact laws subjecting to perpetusd and he-
reditary servitude one half or more of their inhab-
itants f How paltry, how trifling, side by side with
such a terrible assumption, must have appeared the,
pftriiameniary ci&im to tax the colonies, out of which
Ei^volation grew !

AMEBICA.

Nor was the renunciation thus made without a more
direct and positive influence in many of the states ;
for the Supreme Court of Massachusetts decided, in
1784, that the natural freedom and political equality
of all men, proclaimed in the Decla'^ition of Inde-
pendence, and in the Bill of Rights prefixed to the
Constitution adopted in that state in 1780, were to-
tally inconsistent with the existence of involuntary
servitude, and that slavery under that Bill of Rights
could not be legal. A similar clause in the second
constitution of New Harnpshire was held to guarantee
personal freedom to all persons born in that state after
the adoption of that constitution. In Pennsylvania,
Connecticut, and Rliode Island, personal liberty was
secured by statute to all future natives of those
states ; and, to complete this scheme of abolition in
these three states, as well as in New Hampshire, the
further introduction of persons claimed as slaves, or
the exportation of such persons from those states, was
prohibited.

In five of the eight remaining states, New York, New
Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, slavery
was regarded, by the more intelligent and enlightened
citizens, including all those distinguished men who
had taken a conspicuous part in the lat« Revolution,
as an evil and a wrong inconsistent with the princi-
ples on which that Revolution was founded. Its ter-
mination was anxiously looked for, and confidently
hoped. All those five states had taken the first step
in that direction by prohibiting the further introduc-
tion of persons claimed as slaves ; while Virginia and
Maryland, by repealing the old colonial acts which
forbade marmmissions, except by the allowance of
the governor and council, had opened a door for the
action of individual sentiment in favor of liberty
which came soon into active exercise.

Such was th?! state of things in the tea nortjiern
^tetes when the Ji'ederal convention came together ;
wadi pei^d^ig the session of that couventio2i) th^ fa^*
moos ordinance of 1787 was pasi^ by the Coogre^

228

DESPOTISM

of the confederation, by which involuntary servitude,
except for crime, was forever prohibited in the terri-
tory north-west of the Ohio, the only territory to
which, as yet, the confederacy had any title.

Yet this rising sentiment in favor of impartial lib-
erty encountered a formidable opposition. The abo-
lition of slavery had been carried, indeed, in five of
the states, but in only one of those five had it been
thorough, sweeping, and complete. Four had pro-
vided for the future, but had not thought it expedient
to interfere with th^i present. In five other states, a
commencement only had been made. The mass of
the slave-holders in those five states clung with te-
nacity to their prey ; and the friends of emancipation,
though their influence was apparent, did not yet ven-
ture to propose any very decisive measures. In the
Caroiinas and GJeorgia the case was much worse.
The Quakers of North Carolina had indeed com-
menced the emancipation of their slaves, but the as-
sembly of that state put a stop to that " dangerous
practice," as they pronounced it, by forbidding emanci-
pations, except by allowance of the County Courts, and
directing all slaves hitherto emancipated without that
allowance to be seized and resold into slavery. Since
the peace, the importation of slaves from the coast of
Africa into the three southern states had been recom-
mcnced, and was vigorously carried on. In those
states there was little thought of foregoing a system
from which great gains were hoped ; though the legis-
lature of Nt<rth Carolina, in a recent act imposing a
duty on fu^re importations, expressly admitted the
farther introduction of slaves to be of " evil conae-
quence, and highly impolitic."

Let it be remembered, however, — and this consid-
eration, though frequently overlooked or disregarded,
is absolutely essential to a correct underst'^nding of
the ca8e,-~tDat the Federal convention did not assem-
ble to revise the laws or institutions of the states ; nor
to determine or enforce the political or social rights

IN AMERICA.

229

appertaining to the inhabitants of the states, as such.
That had been done already by the state constitu-
tions. The states existed as bodies politic ; they had
their laws defining the rights of their citizens and in-
habitants, and their courts for enforcing those rights ;
and with none of those arrangements, either by way
of enforcement or alteration, was it any part of the
busines-s of the Federal convention to interfere, un-
less in eases where these arrangements had or r.iight
have an injurious bearing upon the citizens of other
states, or upon the foreign relations of the confederacy.
The business of the Federal convention was, so to
amend the articles of confederation as to carry into
effect tne objects at which that confederation aimed ;
namely, the enabling the states to act as one nation
in their foreign affairs, and securing the several states
and their individual inhabitants against injustice, op-
pression, or injury, on the part of other states or their
individual inhabitants.

it might indeed become necessary, for the accom-
plishment of these objects, to interfere to some extent
with some of the existing laws and institutions of the
states, or at least to reserve to the authorities, to be
created by the new constitution, the power of doing
80 ; and under the plan adopted of submitting that
constitution to be separately ratified by each of the
states, any alterations so made or authorized would
rest on the same basis of popular consent with the
state constitutions themselves. But this interference
with state constitutions or state laws, any interference
in any shape with the internal aflfairs of the states, was
a power to be very daintily exercised, especially in its
application to particular cases, as, othervsdse, any con-
stitution which the convention might form would be
sure of being rejected.

Thus the Federal convention had chiefly to do
with the people of America, not in their character as
individuals about to enter into a primary political
organization, but in their character as inhabitants of
certain states ahready constitated and organized. Their

rights as inhabitant<3 of each particular etate it b«-
lo iged to the state governments to settle : the Fed-
eral constitution had only to declare what should be
their additional and supplementary rights as citizens
and inhabitants of the confederacy.

It was from this view of the work before them that
the convention omitted to prefix to the Federa' Con-
stitution any general Bill of Rights — an omission
ranch complained of by those who opposed its adop-
tion. Slavery in the states, under this viev/ of the
subject, was a matter with which the convention was
not caUed upon directly to interfere, and which, in-
deed, could not be directly interfered with without
exposing the proposed constitution to certain rejec-
tion. It did, however, come before the convention
incidentally; and the question which we now have
to consider is, Whether, in dealing with it thus inci-
dentally, the Federal constitution has acknowledged
the legal existence of slavery in any such way aa to
bind the confederacy.

The first article in the Feder?l constitution relied
upon by those who maintain the affirmative on this
yzfiiit is that which determines the ratio of repre-
»8utation in the House of Representatives. That
article, indeed, is frequently spoken of as though it
were the great compromise ; the fundamental conces-
9ion upon which the constitution was based. But
this was not by any means the case. The great dif-
ficulty that occurred at the outset was, to reconcile
the pretensions of the larger and the smaller states.
The smaller states insisted upon that political equality
which they already possessed under the articles of
cxinfederation ; the larger states maintained that repre-
sentation in the national legislature ought to be based
on "wealth and numbers." A resolution to that af-
fect, as to both branches of the legislature, having been
(oanried by the larger states, the smaller states threat-
eja^ to quit tbe convention ; and this result was only
pteveoted by a coocession-Hreconmseaded by a com-
0pdtt»e of me from each state, to whom the subject

IN AMERICA.

mi

was referred, and which was finally adopted by the
convention — yielding to the small states an equal rep-
resentation in one branch of the national legislatare,
namely, in the Senate, in which each state, large or
small, was to have two delegates.

This was the great compromise : the particu'ar
ratio of representation to be adopted in, the otaer
branch was quite a subordinate matter. Yet, though
subordinate, it was interestiwg and important. One
party, headed by Gouverneur Morris, wished to leave
the ratio of representation in the lower house entirely
to the discretion of Congress, with the avowed object
of enabling the existing states to retain a political
ascendency over such new states as might be admit-
ted into the Union. But this was objected to as
unjust, and it became necessary to fix upon some
precise rule of distribution. There was a general
agreement that this distribution should be regulated
by " wealth and numbers ; " numbers might easily be
ascertained by a census ; but how was wealth to be
measured ?

This was a point upon which, under the existiag
confederation, difficulties had already occurred. Jn
framing the articles of confederation it had been pro-
posed — on the ground that population, on the whole^
was the best practicable test of wealth, and ability
to pay taxes-— to distributes the charges of the waf^
and other common expenses, among the states id
proportion to their population. But the SdutherA
states had strongly objected to that Arrangement^
alleging that the labor of their slaves was far less pro*
ductive than the labor of the same number of north*
era freemen ; and the value of bttiidings ftnd culti*
vated lands, to be ascertained by an appraisement
made by the aathorities of each state, was finally
adopted as the basis of taxation and pecuniary Ha*
bility. But such an appraisement was found liable td
great difiicuities, expenses, delays, and objections;
tery few states had made it; and Congress dnee iM
p^tmf by & eoftcetsion to the sl&^r^dldent, and

m

admission of the wealth-producing inefficiency of
slaves as cora pared with freemen, had proposed to
amend the articles of confederation by substituting
as the basis of taxation, and of the distribution among
the states of the expenses of the Revolutionary war,
"the whole number of white and other free citizens
and inhabitants of every age, sex, and condition, in-
» eluding those bound to servitude for a term of years,
and three Jifths of all other persons not comprehended
in the foregoing description;" and this proposed
amendment, agreed to in Congress after a good
deal of higgling between the northern and southern
members as to the relative productiveness of free and
slave labor, had been already acceded to by eleven
out of the thirteen states. The question of the raeas-
wre of wealth as the basis of representation being now
raised in the convention, the same compromise was
suggested there; and, having first agreed that repre-
sentAtion and direct taxation should go together, it
was finally arranged, and so it now stands in the Fed-
eral constitution, that the number of representatives
from each state shall be determined by adding to the
whole number of free peroons, including those bound
to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians
not taxed, three fifths of all other persons^

The question then is, whether the phrase //;ree fifths
of all other persons recognizes the validity of the slave
laws of any particular state, and affords a sufficient
basis for those laws to stand upon, notwithstanding
tbeir original defects already pointed out l4et us ob»
serve, in the fir^t place, that the validity of those laws
was not of the least consequence in settling the point
under consideration, to wit, the productiveness of the
indostry— in other words, the relative wealth—of the
several states. Whether the negroes of Virginia, for
instance, were held in slavery by law or against law,
made, in that point of view, no difference. Suppose,
for example, (as we hold,) that they were illegally de-
prived of their liberty ; the illegality of their servitude
wooid not increase their industry, nor the wealth of

IN jKWISKICA.

tile state, so as to entitle her whole pdptilatloil to toft
counted in determining her representation. "What
the constitution had to deal with, in settling thi«
distribution of representation, was a question of ex-
ternal fact, not a question of law or right. The
question of the individual rights of the inhabitanta
of the states was one over which this articls re-
quired the assumption of no control. Their con-
dition in feet, not their condftion in law, was the
real point according to which the distribution was to
be regulated.

But even in referring to the matter of fact gr^ftt
caution was used. " The question of slavery in thd
states," said Gerry, in reference to another point td
be presently considered, "ought not to be touched,
but we ought to be careful not to give it fifty «an©-
tion." Madison thought it wrong to admit into th*
constitution "the idea that there couid be property
in men ; " and in hia report of the doings Of that con-
vention, to which we are mainly indebted (or wheCt
we know of it, he represents the whole phraseology
of the instrument to have been carefully settled ia
accordance with that view. Thus, in the original
diaft of the clause above cited, instead of bound to
service^ the phmsc botmd to servitude had been used j
following in this respect the proposed amendment to
the articles of confederation from wliicti the idea Of
the Federal ratio was derived; but servitude Wdi*
struck out, and service substituted, as Madison in*>
ibrms us^ because servitude seemed to be only appro-
priate to express the condition of slavery.

It is fair enough to conclude thtft the "other p^-
»on»," referred to in this article, were those held as
slaves in the several states, fiut the constitutioil
takes care not to commit itself by calling them slaves,
»or by using any term tb&t would seem to pass *
judgment on the legal character or particular
incidents of their condition. That remained what it
was ; this article did not affect it in any way f 4nd if
tbe laws of the states fail^ as we maifttEaiO) to girer Cftf

&EU>OTI82£

legal authority to those who claim to be mastera, they
wUl surely look for it itt vain in this article of the Fed-
eral constitution.

When the Federal convention, in tne course of its
labors, arrived at the c! uses investing Congress with
the power to regulate navigation and foreign com-
merce, a new occasion for compromise arose. Tec
states out of the thirteen had already prohibited the
importation of slaves from abroad, and if the Federal
government were invested with unlimited control over
the intercourse with foreign countries, it was plain
enough that one of its first acts would be the pro-
hibition of the African slave trade.

For this Georgia and the Carolinas were not pre-
pared ; and the opinion was very warmly and confi-
dently expressed by their delegates, that such an un-
limited power conferred upon Congress would insure
in those states the rejection of the constitution. To
avoid this result, and to induce, also, the southernmost
states to concede this power over commerce, to which
in common with all the merely agricultural states, they
had several other objections, a provision was inserted,
"that the emigration or importation of such persons
as any of the states now existing shall think proper
to admit, shall not be prohibited by Congress prior to
the year 1808 ; but a tax or duty may be imposed on
such importation not exceeding ten dollars for each
person,"

Observe in this clause the same cautious phrase-
ology as in that ahready discussed. As to the legal
character or condition of the persons so to be admit*
ted, nothing is said. There is not the slightest impli-
cation that the constitution assented in any way that
any of the persons so introduced into the states should
be iieid in slavery. If that was done, it could only
be on the responsibility of those who did it, and of the
states that allowed it. The constitution did not as-
sent to it, and by the power which it reserved to Con-
§ns88f-witli the power which was possible under th«

m AX8B1CA.

circumstancesj — it secured the right, after the lapse
of twenty years, of preventing the possibility of such
an occurrence. But for this right, thus reserved to
the I''ederal government, there is every reason to be-
lieve that in all the states south of Virginia the
foreign slave trade would be now vigorously prose-
cuted. The concession made to Greorgia and the
Carolinas was temporary and limited ; the point car-
ried was of a permanent character.

There still remains one other clause of the constitu-
tion relied upon as sanctioning slavery la the states.
" No person held to service or labor in one state,
under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall,
in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be
discharged from such service or labor ; but shall be
delivered up on claim of the party to whom such uer-
vice or labor may be due." It may be worth while
to notice that in the article now under v^oasideration,
the terra service is employed — " no person held to
service or labor;" whereas, according to the distinc-
tion above quoted from Madison, the term scryt-
iude would have been the proper one, had the
clause been expressly intended for the case of ref-
ugee slaves. But, without dwelling on this distinc-
tion, it is sufficient for our purpose to refer to the
pointed difference between this and the apportion-
ment clause, in the express reference which this
clause makes to law. Practice, usage, fact merely,
is not sufficient, but law is required. " No person
held to service or labor in one state, tmder the laws
thereof" &c. The question, then, whether this clause
stipulates for the return of fugitive slaves, is entirely
dependent on the previous question whether there is
any lawful slavery in any of the states — a question
upon which this clause expresses no opinion, and
throws not the slightest light whatsoever. If there be
any such slavery, it must exist by virtue of state
laws, laws complete and authoritative in themselves ;
£pr whatever might have been the intention, or what*

m

«Ver may be the legal eff<^ of thi» cianse, it sarely
neither iutended to give, nor can it have any effect to
give, a legal or rightful character to any claims of ser-
vice not previously rightful and lefjal.

From numerous recent speeches, published opin-
ions, and other apologies for the fugitive slave act of
1^60, one might be led to imagine that the surrender
of fugitive slaves had been one of the great questions
on which the Federal convention had divided, and
which, as an indispensable condition of union, it had
become necessary to settle by a solemn compromise
embodied in the article here under consideration. To
uhow bow utterly fabulous these statements, so derog-
atory to the convention and to the nation, are, we
subjoin, from Madison's Report of the Debates of the
Convention, all that is known of the history of this
danse; merely premising, what seems to be some*
tiroes forgotten, that the Union did not originate
iJHth the convention, but had been established by the
Articles of Confederation ratified by all the states some
years before—articles which the convention had met
to amplify and amend so as to give greater efficiency
to the central administration.

After warm and protracted debates, and the com-
liiroraise, as already briefly mentioned, of two very
estciting qtiestions — one, that of the relErtive political
weight in the general government to be allowed to
the great and small states, which, by the articles of
confederation, possessed an equal voice ; the other as
to ratio of representation in tbe lower House,— 'for the
third of the three great compromises, that relating to
the importation for twenty years of such persona as any
of the states might see fit to ailow^ did not take place
till a subsequent stage of proceedings,— the conven-
tion came at length to certain reDolutions embodying
the result of its previous discussions and compro-
mises, and supplying the rough material of the consti-
tution as subsequently adopted. These resolutions^
Whi<^ did not «n<ibrtte«^ any more than the mliclea

IN AMIS&J[CA.

of confedsmtion, any thing on the subject of fugi-
tives, whether from justice or labor, were referred
to a coramittee of detail, whose report, among other
specific provisions, how first suggested, contained an
article giving to the citizens of each stsite all the
privileges of citizens in the several states, and an-
other, providing for the mutual surrender by the states
of fugitives from other states charged with treason,
felony, or high misdemeanor. The first of these
articles coming up for debate, General Charles C.
Pinckney, of South Carolina, expressed himself not
satisfied with it. " He seemed to wish that some
provision should be inserted in it in favor of property
in slaves." Very likely he had in his head a pcovi ^ion
as to the states similar to the pretension lately set
up by the slave-holders as to the territories, giving
the right to hold slaves into whatever state the
holder might choose to carry them. But if so,
he did not venture upon any such barefaced prop-
osition ; and the article, as it now stands in the con-
stitution, was adopted by the votes of ail the states
present except South Carolina in the negative, and
Georgia divided. The proposed article on the sub-
ject of fugitives from justice coming up immediately
after, Butler, another South Carolina member, moved
" to require fugitive slaves and servants to be deliv-
ered up like criminals." To this, Wilson, of Penn-
sylvania, objected " that it would require the executive
of the state to do it at the public expense." Sherman,
of Connecticut, added that " he saw no more propri-
ety in the public seizing and surrendering a slave or
servant than a horse." With a view to some sep-
arate provision, Butler withdrew his proposition ;
but the next day offered the draft of a clause,
the idea of which was evidently derived from a sim-
ilar provision in an ordinance just passed by the
Continental Congress, which, in prohibiting forever
8lave47 and involuntary servitude, except in punish-
ment of crimes, in the territory north-west of the
Ohio, (lately ceded to the XInion by the states of Vir-

DSSPOTISM

gtilia, New York, Maseachusetts, and Connet^dnt,)
had also provided " that every person eacapiiig into
the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully
claimed in any one of the original states, such fugi-
tive may b*? lawfully returned, and conveyed to
the person claiming bis or her labor as aforesaid."
Guided evidently by this precedent, Butler proposed,
and the convention— 4n compliance, as we may rea*
flonably conjecture, with an understanding come to
out of doors;-— adopted without debate or dissent an
independent proposition in the following terms s " If
any person bound to service or labor in any of the
United States ahall escape into another state, he or
she shall not be discharged from such service or
labor in consequence of any regulations subsisting in
the state to which they escape, but shall be delivered
up to the person justly claiming their service om
labor." The committee on style, appointed to revise
and anange all the articles agreed on, proposed to
amend this one as follows : " No person legally
held to service or labor in one state* escaping into
another, shall, in consequence of regulations subsist-
ing therein, be discharged from such service or labor ;
but shall i?e delivered up on claim of the party to
whom such service or labor may be due ; " but, be*
ioire it« final adoption, the phraseology was still fQr<*
tber altered, and it was brought into the shape in
which it Qow 9tand»-~in compliance, as Madison tell®
us, with the wish of some who thought the word
leg^al/ff equivocal, and favoring the idea that slavery
was legal in a moral point of view.

Wholly apart from any application of this clause
to the <^iiae of runaway slaves, there was ample mat-
ter for it to operate upon, not only in apprentices and
minor children to whose labor the father has a legal
right, but in these indented servants who bad consti-
tuted, during the whole of the colonial times, so con-
siderable a part of the population, especially in the
Middb States, and whom, as theif importation, in«
termpted by the war, was again be^niog to bQ

fevamed, the conveati^o xoight reasonably hav^ ex-
pwted soon to become as numerous as ever. As
applying to apprentices, cbUdren^ and indented ser*
vants, the article in question confers a Hght in which
the citizens of all the states may share ; viewed
as a provision for the surrender of runaway alavea,
it assumes an unequal and exclusive character, con-.
ferritig a very invidious power on the citizena of a
part only of the states—^a character not to be found
in any other article of the Federal constitution, and
wholly incompatible with its whole spirit.

The simple state of the fact seems then to be this.
A clause was inserted into thtj constittttioa perfectiy
appropriate though there had not been a slave in
the Union, and which may very properly stand there
after slavery shall be completely abolished, a» it was
the general expectation in the convention that it soon
would be. Bat in framing this clause, terms wero
used sufficiently oompffehensive to enable the courts,
if so disposed, constractively to include under it^
durtng the temporary existence of elaveiy, the earn
o( runavi^ay slaves^-provided, the courts should be of
opinion that in the states whence the fagiti-7es had
fied, slavery exinted not merely as a fact, but ^^undet
the laws thereof." In this clause, so much vaunted
as a Federal recognition and indorsement of the legal>
ity of slavery, not the slightest re£ereaee even to the
mere fact of its existence can be found, except by first
taking for granted the very point which it is so often
cited to prove, viz., that slavery did and does exist in
tlie states by virtue of law. (Bee Appendix.)

The three clauses of the Federal constitution above
considered are the only portions of that insi^ament
which have ever been set up as ^ing any ssanction
to slavery. But, so far from finding in these clause^
any such E>anction, we find, on the contrary, evidence

a fixed determination in tho constitution not to

Sield it. They contain no indorsement of the slave
tws of the states; no recognition of slavery as a

DBBPOl'ISM

state institution ; no express recognition even of the*
bare fact of the existence of slavery, and maoh less
of its existence as an institution entitled to the favor-
able regard and protecting care of the Federal gov-
ernnieat. General Piackney, of South Carolina, in
the course of the dehates of the convention, more
thao once asked for suca guaranty for slave property ;
but, so far from yielding to this demand, the greatest
care was taken not to admit into the constitution the
idea that there could be property in men ; " that is to
say, the very fundamental idea upon which the whole
slave system restu. It was impossible for the Federal
cdnstitutiou, by its own proper vigor, to aix)iish sla*
very, or to make its abolition one of the conditions
of the Federal compact — for on such conditions no
constitution could be formed. It was even necessary
to take into account, in several of its provisions, the
actual, but, as it was hoped and expected, temporary,
existence of slavery. Yet, on the other hand, the
greatest care was bad not to give any sanction to a
practice so inconsistent with those natural rights upon
'Which all the American constitutions professed to be
founded, nor indeed even to recognize, except by re-
mote and obscure implicatic its bare existence as
a fact. The utmost length i .vhich the members of
the convention would go, was a silent toleration of sla-
very as it existed ; leaving it to be disposed of— and,
as {he convention expected, to be speedily abolished—
by the states themselves. They were not anti-slavery
men in that sense which makes hostility to slavery
paramount to all other considerations ; but, so far as
an extreme dislike of that system, and a hearty wish
for its speedy extinction, could go, the majority of
them wore decidedly anti-slavery men ; and the consti-
tution, and especially the amendments to it subse-
quently adopted, contain many provisions very incon-
sisteat wi^ the existence of slavery.

This view of the Federal constitution corresponds
very nearly with the view taken of it, both north and
south, lor many years subsequent to its adoption. It

IN ASKSaiCA.

mi

is only withia a recent period that the idea has been
set np) that the '^compromises of the cousiitatioii
include the recognition of slavery as an institution
of the states, or some of them, entitled to protection
and support Still more recent is the doctrine that
the distinguishing trait of "nationality" among m
is the recognitioa and support of the system of sla-
very, and zeal for the return of fugitive slaves. Not
only does the Federal constitution, so &r from recog-
nizing slavery in any such character, take the greatest
pains to avoid doing so, but in point of fact, as w«
maintain, slavery is not even a state institution, le-
gally speaking, but a mere usurpation, unsupport^
by law, and in that character certainly not entitled td
support or countenance from the Federal governmeat
or any other.

But if the Federal constitution, though cautiously
avoiding to commit the Union to the support of sla-
v€iry, has yet left the determination of the rights of
the inhabitants of the states to the state authoritiee^
— «vea allowing that slavery exists by usurpation »id
not by law, — has the Federal government any war-
rant to interfere, in any way, to set this matter right?
Is it not bound to wait patiently till the state author-
ities shall themBelves do it ?

Besides the specific and particular powers conferred
upon Congress by the Federal constitution, that bm!y,
by a clause of a very extensive and oomprehenstve
character, is authorized « to pk-ovide for the common
defence and general welfare of the United States ;
at least in all the cases in which that end can be ac-
complished by the expenditure of money. Now, sap<^
pose the opinion to be adopted, by the majority of
the people, that the "common defence and general
welfare of the United States ; " their defence against
invasion from abroad, and insurrection at home ; their
welfare, moral, social, and &:onomicai, demand the
termination of the system of slavery ;--««nd, in tbiA
point of view, it seems to matter but little whetiktf
21

we consideir that system an illegal usurpation or a
Itigal Institation of those states in which it exists
suppose the conclusion to be arrived at, that the con-
tinned existence of slavery, whether legal or no t, will
be fatal to the success of that great democratic ex-
periment whicii the American people are now mak-
ing ;-»looking at the matter in this point of view, has
not the Federal government a right to interfere, and
to adopt sacb measures as seem best calculated to
stop the increase of this evil, and to bring it to an
end ? If, under the clause above cited, Congress had
power to buy Louisiana, to buy Florida, to annex
Texas, to buy Calicornia, has it not power, under the
saxm clause, to vote money towards the lilieration of
some . millions of native-born inhabitants from most
cruel servitude?

It is true that, heretofore, Congress has not legis-
lated with this intention. It is also true, that, on a
petition signed by Franklin and others, and presented
to the first Congress, praying that body to take meas-
ures for the abolition of slavery, the conclusion was
arrived at, after a warm debate, that Congress had no
juriiidiction over the subject of slavery wkhin the
t^tates. Bat this decision, binding only on the Con-
gress that made it, though very generally acquiesced
in since, still remains open to revision ; and a change
of circumstaQces, changing the light in which the
question presents itself, cannot fail to have a seri-
ov» inflaence on the decision to be made upon it
, When the first Congress met, slavery was a crime
and disgrace in which the whole of Christendom was
mote oT less involved ; and in the wars which the na-
tiims of Europe carried on with each other, their prac-
tices in this matter were mutually respected. When
Franee, England, Spain, and Holland invaded each
otho's colonies, they never thought of putting arms
into the bands of the slaves. Early in our Revolu-
tionary war, some suggestion was thrown out in the
British Hbuse of Commons, that the slaves in the
•oatbem states might be liberated, armed, and em*

IN AUSERIOjU

ployed to keep those colonies in snbjection ; but the
opposition, headed by Burke and Fox, denounced the
idea as barbarous, atrocioue, and infamous, and the
suggestion, never seriously entertained, remained, to
a great extent, unacted upon. Mason, of Virginia,
feelingly acknowledged in the Federal convention,
that if the British had availed themselves, as they
might have done, of the aid of the negroes, the war
in the southern states might have had a very different
termination.

During the last war with England, a plan, it is said,
was formed for occupying the peninsula between the
Chesapeake and the Delaware with a British army,
turning it into an asylum for the slaves of Virginia
and*Maryland, to whom liberty was to be proclaimed ;
organizing and training a black army, under English
officers, and marching with it to the conquest of the
South. But Britain had slaves of her own ; it would
not do to set an example of insurrection and of liberty
won at the point of the bayonet ; and this brilliant
scheme was consequently abandoned. Had it been
energetically undertaken, something more might have
happened than the burning of the Capitol. '

Since that period opinions have greatiy changed.
England has abolishea slavery throughout her wide-
spread dominions. France has also abolished it in
her colonies. All Christendom cries out against it
Should we become involved in war with FVance or
England, especially with En^and, — and war with
England is one of the commonplaces of our politics,
— no matter what the cause or origin of the war, a
proclamation of freedom to the enslaved would sanc-
tify it in the eyes of the worid. It would become the
cause of humanity against despotism-^— a despotism
the more hateftd itom its attempt to cloak itself with
the name of democracy, and from its audacious efforts
to trample out the doctrine of the rights of man in
the very states by which tiiat doctrine was first pro-
claimed as the basis of political organization. The
enemy would strike us in our vital ports, and Ohria-

tendom would honor and appiaud the blow, Undef
these circumstances, will not due regard to the " com*
mon defenoe" justify Congress in adopting a course
of legislative policy such as may narrow, limit, re-
strict, and tend to the extinction of a source of weak-
ness which no provision of forts and steam frigates
can guard against?

The "welfare of the United States," their internal
well-being, apart from any dangers from without, and
more especially the welfare of the slave states them«
selves, seem to call still louder for Congressional
interference. The perception of the evils of slavery
basj till recentJy, been confined to a speculative few
— a class of persons more inclined to think than to
act, and disabled, by the sraailness of their number,
from any effectual political action. But sensibility to
those evils, especially to the obstacles which the exist-
ence of slavery opposes to the further extension of the
principles of equality and justice even in their appli-
cation to the free, — thanks to the efforts and labors
of those known as Abolitionists, — is now beginning
to penetrate the mass, and to find representatives and
an expression in the legislatures of the free states, and
even in Congress. When a majority in Congress
come to be thoroughly impregnated with these ideas ;
when they come to look upon slavery, not merely as
an evil, a calamity, a thing to be lamented and regret-
ted, but as a fatal obstacle to the progress of our free
institutions, a consuming cancer eating into the heart
of oar liberties, and threatening the extinction of those
principles upon which our constitutions are founded;
— perceiving that the " welfare of the United States "
is seriously compromised, — can they hesitate to come
to the rescue ? Will they not feel themselves called
upon, not alone by humanity, by patriotism, but by
the very letter of the constitution itself, to come to
the rescue?

But even grant that Congress might not rightfully
assume to legislate upon the subject of slavery inde-
pendently of and adver»e to the states to be directly

IN AMERICA.

affected by such legislation, yet their consent and co-
operation would certainly go far to reraove this obsta-
cle. Nor is it to be supposed that such a feeling as
we have above referred to can become predominant
in Congress without penetrating, albo, to a greater or
less extent, itito the slave states themselves. But the
evil of slavery is so immense, and in moat of our
slave states it has become so firmly rooted,— swal-
lowing up, as it were, the state and the church, and
enlisting in its support the wealth, the talent, the
intelligence, the education, the ignorance, the preju-
dices, and the passions of the people,— that to wait
for those states to take the leadership in the abolition
movement would be absurd. The effects of such
waiting have been long since manifest. The abo-
lition of slavery in Maryland and Virginia, so confi-
dently expected and so devoutly wished for by Heury,
Washington, JefTerson, Mason, Madison, did not
take place. The slave-holders of those states have,
on the contrary, added to the injustice of slave-hold-
ing the cruelty and turpitude of slave-breeding and
slave-exporting; and, in diffusing this evil over the
new regions of the south-west, they have found new
inducements for continuing it among themselves.
For the purpose of extending this slave market, they
do not hesitate to involve the Union in disgraceful
wars of conquest. Not content with the seizure of
Texas, the annexation of Cuba is abready suggested
— 'to which Virginia might serve as a new AfHca, the
slave trade to that coast having been mainly cut off
by the vigilance of the English cruisers. This let-
alone policy, this waiting for the parties most imme-
diately interested to take the lead, came near proving
fatal even to Congress itself. The right of petition,
even freedom of debate, seemed about to be extin-
guished in that body. The Federal government has
put itself forward as the champion and defender of
slavery ; the antagonist, on this point, of all Christen-
dom. What a change, even on the question of the
African slave trade '.—that very government, which
9A*

DBSVOTISBt

bad itself oace proposed a mutual right of aearch on
the coast of Africa, exerting all its efforts, and not
without success, to defeat a treaty of that sort into
which Britain had induced the great powers of Eu-
rope to entt^r ! The thraldom, thank God, into which
Congress was fast sinking, has, by the steady efforts
of a few noble men, at last been partially shaken off.
The attention of the people has been aroused to the
question — Shall the Federal government be a slave-
botding or an anti-slave-hoiding government? Ex-
perience seems to show that any middle ground,
practically speaking, is out of the question. If the
Federal government is not the one, it must be the
other

But supposing the Federal government to have
power, to have a constitutional right to act in this
matter, how is it to act? Shall Congress employ
force? Shall a law be passed declaring the right of the
ioathern negroes to freedom, and an army be marched
into the southern states to enforce such law? Such
yude and violent methods of effecting political changes
correspond neither to the principles of our institutions
nor to the enlightened philosophy of the present age.
It is not the omce of t ie Federal government to abol-
ish slavery by a mere act of its own authority im-
posed upon the slave-holding states — an act which
might justly be denounced as arbitrary, and which
the whole white population of the South would o ate
to resist Great evils are not thus to be got rif* of by
a single blow. To be effectually and peac{.rully abol-
ished, slavery must be abolished by the legislatures
of the slave states themselves. There exist in all the
slave states ample materials for a party ready to un-
dertake that great and illustrious task. Some mov-
ing of the dry bones has been of late discernible ; but,
for the most part, the anti-slavery party of the South,
•trong, morally and intellectually, and by no means
coatemptible^n point of numbers, lies at this moment
proAtmte, completely paralysed by terror, and pre-

vented thereby from any movement or ^)7ganiz&«
tion ; held down in as pitiable a state of fear and
helplessness as can well be imagined. The great
excitement of 1834 — the alarm then raised among
the slave-holders by the symptoms of an anti-slavery
movement at the r^orth — caused the extemporaneous
introduction into the southern states of a suppressive
system, based apparently on the Spanish inquisition—
but with the democratic improvements of turning
every slave-holder into an inquisitor, and the misera^
ble, uneducated mob of the southern villages and
hamlets into spies and officers — the proceedings, with"
out any troublesome or tedious formalities, being reg-
ulated by the code of Lynch law, the same parties
acting in the fourfold capacity of accusers, witnesses,
judges, and executioners. That same despotic spirit,
indeed, which holds the slaves in subjection without
law and against law, does not hesitate a moment to s^t
aside all the most sacred principles of law, all our
much-vaunted safeguards of personal security, for the
sake of speedy vengeance upon those inclined in any
way to question its authority. Such, indeed, is the
just retribution of nature. Establish despotism over
one class of the community, and it will soon extend
itself over all the others. Give your neighbor a right
to tyrannize over slaves, and he will soon assume a
right to tyrannize over you.

Yet it is to this down-trodden party, thb humbled
and silenced party, this party existing, indeed, as yet
only in embryo, without organisation or self-conscious-
ness, these southern anti-slavery men, that we must
look for the abolition of slavery. The spirit of des*
potism must be encountered in the slave states them-
selves, by a power potent enough to awe it down, and
keep it under ; and this power can only be a mass of
citizens combined together, acting in concert, and
having such weight of social, and especially of po-
litical influence, that it shall become necessary to
respect their feelings, their opinions, and their rights.
Suoh a opmbination must be formed in all the slav«

DBSPOXIS!tf

states before the first effectual steps can be taken, we
do not say towards the abolition of slavery merely,
but even towards the enforctment of the rights of
those nominally free ; those great rights of free dis-
cussion and a free press which no despotism, or
would-be despotism, willingly tolerates.

Congress, however, or the friends of freedom in
Congress, are not to wait till such a party rises up.
It is their business to help it up, to reach out a
band to it, on every possible occasion. Could the
immense patronage of the Federal government once
be directed to that point, we may judge of the result
likely to follow by the effect which that same patron-
age has produced at the North, in a counter direction.
It is by calling upon the Federal government, on
every possible occasion that occurs, or can be made
to occur, to abjure all responsibility for slavery and
all countenance of it; it is by finding and making
perpetual occasions to point out the evils of slavery
in particular instances, its incompatibility with the

general welfare," and the obstacles which it opposes
to the " common defence ; " — it is by imitating the ex-
ample of steadfast old Cato, and repeating at every
opport^inity, in season and out of season, ^' I think
also that slavery ought to be abolished ; " — such are
the means by which even a very few members of Con-
gress may effect great things ; not indeed by way of
direct legislation, — for direct legislation constitutes,
after all, but a small part of the influence which Con-
gress exerts, — but by keeping this subject constantly
before the public mind ; enabling and compelling the
slave-holders to see what they have hitherto so obsti-
nately shut their eyes to; and what is of more im-
portance yet, giving the hon-slave-holding freemen of
the South an opportunity to see what the slave-hold-
ers hitherto have so dexterously kept out of their
sight

Just in proportion as the anti-slavery party increases
in Congress; just in proportion as that body shall
evince symptoms of a settled, firm, and steady oppo-

IN AMZRICA.

flition to slavery ; just in the same proportion will the
southern anti-slavery men be encouraged to confess
themselves, first to themselves, th?.n to one anothepf
and then to the world. Only through the mediunoi
of Congress, and the Federal government, can the
anti-slavery sentiment of the North be brought into
any active cooperation with the anti-slavery sentiment
of the South ; and surely, until northern representa*
tives of non-slave-holding constituencies can stand up
on 'he floor of Congress and boldly speak their minds
upon the subject, and secure a hearing too, it is quite
too much to expect any such boldness, or any such
hearing, in the legislature of any slave-holding state.

It needs, as we believe, only this free discussion to
show that even the technical legality behind which
slavery claims to entrench itself cannot be maintained.
This point has hitherto been conceded to the slave-
holders, hastily, without examination, and, as we be-
lieve, without reason. The truth seems to be that,
although the people of the southern states were will-
ing, and a large majority of them desirous, to allow
slavery to continue among them as a matter of fact,
they left its legality to rest upon the enactments and
practice of the colonial times, without undertaking
by any fundamental act of sovereignty on their part
to confer any new or additional legality upon it The
legality of American slavery rest», then, upon a colo-
nial n^^ge — -a usage not only unsustained by the Eng-
lish law, but, in several most important points, directly
contradictory to it ; a usage totally incapable of fur-
nishing any legal foundation for any claim of right ;
a usage upon which neither the state constitntiona
nor the Federal constitution undertake to confer a
legal character ; and upon which, indeed, taking into
account the very fundamental principles of the Amer-
ican government, they could not confer a legal
character.

When the colonists set forth in their Declaration
of Independence, as the justification and basis of the
Etand they had taken, the natural Right of all men to

DESPOTISM

life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they must
be esteemed as pledging themselves to -the world,
aud to each other, for the recognition and mainte-
nance of that right. Nor was this declaration the mere
act of the Continental Congress, whose power might
be disputed ; for it was distinctly and solemnly rat-
i&ed, adopted, and confirmed by every individual state
in the Union. From that moment, then, it was a
solemn pledge on the part of all the states, and a tacit
condition of the Union, that slavery should be done
away with as soon as possible. By adopting, two
years before, the non-importation agreement, known
as the American Association, the states had already
pledged themselves to import no more slaves ; a
pledge from which they were never released, though
the Caroiinas and Georgia chose afterwards to violate
it, and to insist on a constitutional permission to
continue that violation for twenty years. The same
understanding as to the abolition of slavery prevailed
when the Federal constitution was adopted. Slavery
was regarded as a transitory evil, to be speedily re-
moved, and the greatest care was taken not to men-
tion it by name, nor to recognize in that instrament
any such idea as that of property in man.

The northern states have waited a great while, pa-
tiently, for their southern neighbors to carry out their
agreement If the conclusion should be arrived at,
that the southern states are unable or unwilling to
redeem their pledge, certainly the least we of the
North can do is, to proclaim, every where, our con-
viction of the utter illegality of this accursed institu-
tion, and of the bad faith of the South in prolonging
it« existence.

Nor, indeed, can it reason?.bly be e??pe. 'ed that the
men of the North wili stop there. The abolition of
slavery, not to mention how essential it is to the
preservation of the rights and liberties of the free, is
a debt due from the United States to the memory and
honor of our Revolutionary fathers, to the principles
of democracy, to human nature itself; and just in

IN AMERICA.

251

proportion as our southern brethren shall fail to take
the lead in this inevitable enterprise, that leadership
must of necessity devolve on us of the North. It
has only been by professions of ultra democracy, of
exceeding respect for the natural rights of men, and
of opposition to all arbitrary and unnecessary author-
ity, that the slave-holding body have been enabled to
exercise so long-continued and so decided an influ-
ence over our national politics. The time has now
come — the ascendency of democratic ideas having,
under southern patronage, been firmly established at
the North, and the domination of the old aristocrat-
icai cliques completely put down — -that the northern
democracy can return the favor by aiding the south-
ern states in the substitution of a democracy like
that of the North, in place of those slave-holding oli-
garchies by which the entire laboring population of
the South, white as well as black, has hitherto been
held in such entire subjection. And, in adopting
such a course, the northern democracy will consult
not more the spirit of their own policy than the true
intent of the framers of the Federal constitution. For
whatever disputes may be raised as to the precise
intent of the framers of that instrument in partic-
ular clauses, one thing at least is certain, — whatever
monstrous aKsamptions to the contrary may have
lately been countenanced in quarters where more
knowledge and better feelings might naturally have
been expected the framers of the constitution never
intended, the people who ratified the constitution
never intended, to found a slave-breeding and a sla-
very-propagating republic. The barest suspicion that
the constitution could operate to perpetuate the insti-
tution of slavery would have caused its indignant •
rejection by all the northern and by a part of the
southern states. The general intent of the framers
of the constitution is clearly and comprehensively
expressed in its preamble, by which its objects are
declared to be, " To form a more perfect union, estab-
lish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for

the common defence, promote the general welfare,
and secure the bieissings of liberty to ourselves and
our posterity." Now, to which of these great objects
has not the existence among us of domestic slavery
proved a stumbling-block from the day the first Con-
tinental Congress met down to the current moment?
So long as slavery continues, ihe union of the states
never can be perfected; justice is but an empty name;
our domestic tranquillity will always be in danger-—
and that even less from the slaves, reluctantly held in
bondage, and watching an opportunity to throw off
the yoke, than from the idle, turbulent, hot-beaded,
and insolent among their masters, who, not content
with lynching private individuals, and even sovereign
states of the Union in the persons of their representa-
tives, threaten separation and civil war whenever
thwarted in any of their pretensions. What aid does
the institution of slavery aftbrd to the common de-
fence ? Officers, perhaps, but neither men nor money.
As to securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves
and our posterity, the slave-holders, backed by the
mercantile interest of the North, in which they have
found a humble but zealous ally, have, within the
last fifteen years, made not less than two desperate
attempts entirely to suppress all freedom of speech
and of the press, and to make universal that reign of
terror so vigorously enforced during that entire period
throughout the southern part of the Union !

And yet those who labor to eradicate this lasting
and inevitable source of discord, this eating cancer
of our liberties and peace, are accused of hostility to
the union of the states~and that, too, by a set of po-
litical Pharisees, who, in parading their anxiety to
carry out the alleged implied intentions of the framers
of the constitution as to the return of runaway ne-
groes, do at best but pay tithe of mint and cumin,
while they wholly neglect those weightier matters,
those great overruling intentions, not implied, alleged,
made out by construction, or discovered by a resort
to contemporaneous history, but proclaimed in tho

253

preamble to the constitation, and throaghout the
whole text of the instrumeni>— the growth of the
United States into a great, united, free repubiiu I

That which the fathers planned, and of which they
laid the '>uodation», building upon them according
to the n isure of their means and enlightenment, it
becomes us of this generation, with the advantage
of far superior means, and gr ler experience, to carry
out and perfect.

That the abolition of slavery is by no means so
impracticable a thing as many represent, and that
even the slave-holders themselves may, by a reason-
able regard to their claims to pecuniary indemnity,
be induced heartily to concur in it, an attempt will be
made to show in a subsequent treatise.

SECTION IV.

The Fugitive Act of 1850.

It is upon the clause of the constitution of the
United States for the delivery up of " persons held to
service or labor under the laws " of any state escap-
ing into another, that the fugitive slave act (com-
monly so called) of 1850 is founded. That act, how-
ever, it is to be observed, notwithstanding its popular
title, and the avowed purpose of its enactment^ says
nothing, any more than the constitution itself, in di-
rect terms, about slaves or slavery. Its application to
the case of fugitive slaves proceeds entirely on the as-
sumption that slavery exists in certain of the states
not merely in fact but by law, so that under the de-
scription of persons bound to t :rvice and labor un-
der state laws slaves are included— an assumption -
which judges and comir-issioners may declare too
plain to be argued about, or to require to be sustained
22

by any reasons, bat whkb, for ail that, may be cntiyc«
ly groundless and gratuitous, as we have already at-
tempted to show.

Wholly independently, however, of the argument
tipon that point, or of the particular application of
the act of 1850 to the case of runaway slaves, two
distinct sets of objections have been taken to the con-
stitutionality of that act, besides many others to its
arbitrary spirit, and its grossly evident disposition (.-^o
abundantly illustrated as weli by several of its pro-
irkions as by many of the p.-oceedings which have
taken place under it) to sacrifice the rights of persons
claimed to the convenience and even to the rascality
of persona claimant

L The giound is taken, in the first place, that this
return of fugitives from labor is a matter which be-
longs, at least in its initiative, wholly and exclusively
to the authorities and tribunals of the states, and with
which Congress has no right to interfere, nor to au-
thorize any body else to interfere, until the proceed-
ing shall have resulted in a suit cognizable by the Fed-
eral tribunals. The intention and effect of the clause
in the Federal constitution respecting fugitives from
labor seems to be, that no right to service under the
laws of any state shall be defeated, notwithstand-
ing any differences of local law, by any escape into
another state ; but to the extent of recapturing such
fugitive,-— and if the services to which he is bound be
of such 8i nature that the exaction of them is not per-
mitted under the laws of the state in which he is
found, still, of holding him for a period sufficient for
his removal, — that right shall be recognized and en-
forced by the tribunals of the state in which the fugi-
tive is found ; the proceedings of such state tribunals
of course being liable, should the procedure take the
form of a judicial contest to be transferred to or re-
viewed by the Federal courts, under the general juris-
diction given to them in all cases arising under the
Federal constitution and laws, there to be proceeded
with according to the general methods prescribed in

the judiciary acta. To give thus to a South Cj»roli-
Mian, for instance, claiming service or labor from a
fugitive found in Massachusetts as due to .him under
South Carolina law, precisely the same right and the
same means, neither more nor less, to reclaim that
fugitive, vi^hich a Massachusetts man has in Massa-
chusetts in the ease of his runaway child or appren-
tice, would seem to be quite as much as any reasona-
ble slave-holder could ask ; at all events quite as much
as the Federal constitution ever intended to allow.

According to this view of the matter, no special
legislation, whether state or Federal, respecting fugi-
tives from one stat« into another, is necessary, nor even
allowable. The constitution of the United States
being the supreme law of the land, and recognisred
as such by all the State courts and authorities, its
provision respecting fugitives is quite sufficient to
give, in each state of the Union, through the agency
of the state tribunals and state authorities in the first
place, or if they fail of their duty, then through the
agency of the Federal courts, the same protection
and the same justice alike to all claimants and to
all fugitives, to whatsoever state they may belong, or
upon the laws of whatsoever state their respective
rights may be based.

Nor is this view of the case, so reasonable and sat-
isfactory in itself, and so free from the mnltifarioui
difficulties and objections to which any other inter-
pretation of the clause in question is exposed,* want-
ing in support from the most respectable quarters.
That Congress has no power to legislate for the re-
tarn of fugitives from labor, and that the act of 1793
on that subject (and of course the act of 1850) is
unconstitutional, was elaborately maintained by Chan-
cellor Walworth, of New York, by his opinion given
in the New York Court of Errors in the case of Jack

* " If^ as seems to be admitted, legislation is necessary to carry
into efTect the object of the constitutioa, what beoomos of the right
vthen there b no law on the subject ? " Opimon of Judge Thomp-
Boa in Prig^ r. Peiuuyhamot 19 reten 631.

256

DESPOTISM

V. Martin, (14 Wendall, 507) ; and even Mr. Webster,
in his famous 7th of March speech, emphatically de-
clared himself to entertain the same view. " I have
always thought," such are his virords, " that the con-
stitution addressed itself to the legislatures of the
staies, or to the states themselves. It says that those
persons escaping to other states 'shall be delivered
• up./ and I confess I have always been of the opinion
that it was an injunction upon the states themselves.
"When it is said that a person escaping into another
state, and coming, therefore, within the jurisdiction
of that state, shall be delivered up, it seems to me
the import of the clause is, that the state itself, in
obedience to the constitution, shall cause him to be
delivered up. That is my judgment. I have always
entertained that opinion, and I entertain it now. But
•when the subject, some years ago, was before the Su-
preme Court, the majority of the judges held that the
power to cause fugitives from service to be delivered
up was a power to be exercised under the authority
of this (i. e., the Federal) government." The case
here alluded to is that of Prigg v. Pennsylvania,
(16 Peters, 539,) of which we shall presently have
occasion to speak.

The necessity failing, of any legislatioii, and espe-
cially of any Federal legislation, to carry into eHect
the clause for the delivering up of fugitives from labor,
the only other ground on which any such Federal
legislation can be or has been attempted to be sus-
tained, is the mere ground of precedent— the not ion
80 great a favorite with a certain class of lawyers,
more learned than profound, that usage makes law,
or rather, that the law is to be determined by usage.
It is said that the right of Congress to legislate on
this subject cannot now be questioned, because that
right was exercised by the second Congress, some
sixty years ago, and has ever since been acquiesced
in; an argument that seems to count for nothing the
adverse opinions of such lawyers as Walworth, Web-
ster, and others to be presently mentioned.

IN AMEBICA.

257.

The advocates of this estoppel have a great deal to
say (see Nelson's opinion in Jack v. Martin, in the
Supreme Court of New York, 12 Wendali, 311)
about the large tmnriber of members of the Federal
convention who sat also in the Congress of 1793,
and of the great and special knowledge which they,
and the other members of that Congress, must be
supposed to have had of the intimate intentions of
the framers of the Federal constitution, and of the
true meaning and proper interpretation of that instru-
ment. But to all this there are two very sufficient
answers. Whatever knowledge there might have
been in the Congress of 1793 of the secret history
of the Federal constitution, and of the expectations,
hopes, wishes, or intentions of the individuals con-
cerned in framing it, or procuring its ratification, we
of the present day— since we have, besides the text of
the constitution, the labors of more than sixty years
bestowed by the courts and the bar upon its interpre-
tation and exposition — are in a vastly better position
for apprehending it3 real legal purview and elFect
than the men of 1793, or even than the very men
that made it, who, in all the questions that speedily
arose as to its interpretation, were even less unani- #
mous than the expositors of to-day. In point of fact,
the members of the Federal convention, of whom
many subsequently sat in the early Congresses, seem
in general to have had but a very imperfect and con-
fused idea of the real nature of the national govern-
ment which they had created, and of its true relations
to the governments of the states. The idea of two,
or rather of sixteen coordinate governments so inti-
mately intertwined, and yet each, in its own sphere,
sovereign and independent, was at first very difficult
to be apprehended, at least in its consequences;
and no inconsiderable part of the legislation of
the early Congresses — and the fugitive act of 1793
affords an instance of it — proceeded upon the false
idea that in the execution of its own powers, Con-
gress and the Federal executive had a right not
22*

tm

DESPOTISM

only to employ but to command the officers of the
states.

But^ in the second place, quite apart from the errors
into which a body no better suited for such purposes
than Congress would be likely to fall, especially at
fir^t, as to the extent of its authority,— the whole the-
ory of the scope of Federal legislation, upon which
those who had the control of the early Congresses
proceeded, was subsequently greatly modified. The
Federalists, as they called themselves, the consolida-
tionists, as they were considered by their opponents,
who controlled the early Congresses, and who, like
the present Union men, so called, professed a special
attachment to the ccnstitution and the Union, pro-
ceeded upon the idea of making a strong national
government ; indeed, of drawing within the range of
Federal legislation every thing that might be most
conveniently so dealt with — that is to say, about
every thing. The Democratic or State Rights party
held, on the other hand, that the legislation of Con-
gress ought to be strictly limited to cases expressly
authorized by the constitution. Such was the doc-
trine so emphatically set forth in the famous Resolu-
« tions of '98 ; and such, at this moment, is the doc-
trine not only ostentatiously professed by those at
the head of the Federal government, but which, in a
certain modified form at least, has obtained- — upon all
questions not involving the convenience of slave-hold-
ers — pretty entire possession even of the United States
tribunals. But surely it cannot be expected, without
counting more fully than facts would seem yet to
warrant upon the stupidity and patience of the
North, that a liberal interpretation of the powers
of Congress, rc'ected In all cases in which the indus-
trial and pecu iary interests of the North have been
thought to be concerned, will be tolerated for the
sole purpose of propping up the crumbling system of
southern despotism. It was natural enough for Mr.
Webster, both as an ancient Federalist and as a modern
Union man, to yield up as he did, in his 7th of March

IN AMERICA.

speech, his own deliberate opinioi , long held, and
still unaltered, to the formal judgment even of a
mere majority of the judges of the Supreme Court
of the United States, — for it was the policy of the
old Federal, as it now i« of our modern, self-styled
Union party, (more commonly known as Silver-Grayf,
or Old Fogies,) to exalt that Supreme Court into a
final arbiter, if not indeed an infallible judge, not
in private controversies only, but in all political ques-
tious also, involving the interpretation — as what po-
litical question does not? — of the Federal constitu-
tion and laws. But to see Franklin Pierce, who,
during his six years' service in the Senate, sat a silent,
humble, admiring disciple at the feet of Calhoun;
who, as presidential candidate, was the choice, be-
cause the submissive catechumen, of the Democratic
State Rights party, whose doctrines he took speedy
occasion, after his election, to glorify and endorse ;
and who, as president, professes to walk in the foot-
steps of Andrew Jackson, he who boldly claimed for
himself, and for all the coordinate branches of the gov-
ernment, the right to act under the constitution as
they understood it, even in spite of decisions of the
Supreme Court ; to see this Democratic State Rights
president inconsistently striking in with that con-
sistent old Federalist, Mr. Webster, and runniiig in
his company, on behalf of slavery, into the most ultra
Federal extremes—this is a spectacle rather trying to
those who wish to regard the rising leaders of the
young democracy of the North as at least tolerably
true and sincere men, and not, as their political op-
ponents so indiscriminately represent them, mere un-
principled scamps in pursuit of office, ready to profess
and to do every thing tending thereto.

IL But even admitting that the surrender of fugi-
tives from labor is a matter exclusively within the
scope of Federal authority, and not only a proper sub-
ject for the legislation of Congress, but one upon
which Congress is imperatively bound to legislate,
(as was held by the majority of the Supreme Court

2(50

DK8POT1SM

of the United States in the case of PHj^g v. PentV'
si'lvania,) nevertheless, the act of 1850 appears to be
grossly unconstitutional in not less than three impor-
tant particulars.

1. It confers jurisdiction concurrent with that of
the judges of the Supreme and Circuit Courts of the
United States upon a set of commissioners, mere ap-
pointees of the Circuit and Territorial United States
Judges ; holding office at the will of those who ap-
point them; paid by fluctuating and uncertain fees,
and, m fugitive cases, bribed to decide in favor of
the claimant by a double fee in case they do so ; un-
commissioned by tlie president, and unsworn — when
the conrflitution of the United States expressly re-
quires that all judges, whether of the Supreniie or
inferior courts shall hold office during good behavior,
and shall, at staled times, receive for their services a
compensation which shall not be diminished during
their continuance in office; shall be nominated by the
president and confirmed by the senate ; shall be sworn
to support the constitution of the United States, and
shall be commissioned by the president.

2. It deprives the alleged fugitive cl the right of
trial by jury.

3. It substantially denies the writ of habeas corpus
by its prohibition to all courts, State or Federal, to
inquire under that writ, or any other, into the grounds
of the commissioner's certihcate, or to correct any
errors of fact or law into which he may have fallen.

Although Mr. Webster, in his 7th of March speech,
announced his intention to support the bill then on
the ^able of the senate and which subsequently be-
came the act of 1850, "with all its provisions, to
its fullest extent," " with some amendments to it,"
(which, however, he found no opportunity to ofl'er)
—yet he carefully avoided on that occasion the
slightest allusion to its odious and questionable de-
tails. Instead of that he substituted "a solemn ap-
peal to all the sober and sound minds at the North,
fts a question of morals and a question of conscience.

IN AMEEICA.

261

what right they had in their legislative capacity, or
any other capacity, tc endeavor to get round the con-
stitution, or to embarrass the free exercise of the rights
secured by the constitution to the persons whose slaves
escape from them." A perilous appeal, in the mak-
ing of which the orator seems to have forgotten that
sober and sound minds, honest citizens with no polit-
ical expectations or hopes of mercantile profit to
warp their better judgments, might be apt, at the
same time, to ask themselves, as a question of mor-
als and a question of conscience, and with even
stronger emphasis too, what right they had in their
legislative capacity, or in any other capacity, to open
a door to kidknapping, or to put to the slightest risk
or danger the personal liberty of a single fellow-cit-
izen, hov/ever humble his position, empty his purse,
or dark his complexion. Such persons, so appealed
to, might be apt to call to mind the adjudication of
" another Daniel come to judgment," a case quite as
generally known and approved as any recorded in the
law books.

Portia. A pound of that same merchant's flesh is thine ;
The court awards it, and the law doth give it
Shylock. Most rightful judge !

Portia. And you must cut this flesh from off his breast ;
The law allows it, and the court awards it

Shj/hck. Most learned judge ! — A sentence : Come. Prepare.

Portia. Tarry a little : — there is something else.
This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood ;
The words expressly are, a pound of flesh.
Take then thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh;
But in the cutting it, if thou dost shed
One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods
Are, by the laws of Venice, confiscate
Unto the state of Venice.

Graliano. O upright judge! — Mark, Jew. O learned judge!

Sliiflock, Is that the law ?

Portia. Thyself shall see the act |
For as thou urgest justice, be assured
Thou shall have justice more than thcu dejir'st

Though Mr. Webster, in his 7th of March speech,
■—perhaps on the principle that it ia hard to touch

262

DESPOTISM

pitch without being defiled by it, — said not a word
oil behalf of the particular provisions of the bill,
which, nevertheless, he so fully endorsed ; a bill
yielding up not merely the pound of flesh alleged to
be stipulated in the bond, but, along with it, the very
heart's blood of freedom ; yet he was soon driven, by
the storm of indignation on the part of many of the
soberest and soundest minds of the North which that
endorsement raised against him, to attempt an apol-
ogy for the misshapen monster into standing god-
father to which he had been so ui.iortunately whee-
dled and seduced by such busy gossips as Hangman
Foote. This be did in his letter to the citizens of
Newburyport of May 15th following the delivery of
bis 7th of March speech, and containing a double
apology for the bill in question — first, a disquisition
on the nature of the process provided by it, and, sec-
ondly, an attempt to justify it by preced(!nt.

It would appear reasonable to judge of the Tiiature
of any proceeding .by its effects, which eflects in the
cat^e under consideration are sufficiently obvious. A
man lattly possessed of freedom is converted into a
chattel, and as such is delivered up to a claimant
who has the whole power of the United States to
back him in carrying ofi' this chattelized man or wo-
man to a slave state, where the mere fact of posses-
sion gives to the possessor the legal character and
the almost unbounded legal prerogatives and powers
of master and owner, including imprisonment at
pleasure, and the unrestricted use of the lash and of
starvation, with no liability to question for it, if death
do not immediately ensue. Yet we are gravely told
by Mr. Webster — who, in defect of other arguments,
and destitute, as usual, of all originality, has eagerly
caught at a suggestion dropped probably without
much coiisideration thirty years before by Chief Jus-
tice Tilghrnan, of Pennsylvania, in a case which we
shall presently have occasion to consider — that a
claim, an adjudication upon it, and the delivery up
of the adjudged chattel into the thus unrestricted

IN AMERICA.

power of the claimant, is no judicial act, no trial,
nothing but a mere executive procedure preliminary
and auxiliary to a trial, a mere case of extradition, a
sending back the fugitive to the state whence he
came, in order that his right to freedom may there
be tested.

Conscious sophistry and studied falsehood if not
somewhat excusable — in a lawyer — are at least some-
what intelligible when there is an object to be an-
swered by them. This suggestion of Tilgh man's,
adopted by Webster, notwithstanding an express
ruling to the contrary by the majority of the Supreme
Court of the United States in the case of Prigg v.
Pennsj/lvania, (see 16 Peters, 616,) being afterwards
more fully elaborated and artfully set forth in a legal
opinion by an adroit lawyer, was soon followed by
that lawyer's elevation to a seat on the bench of
that same Supreme Court by the side of the judge of
the adjoining circuit, whose previous promotion had
a similar antecedent. But so far as concerns the vin-
dication of the Fugitive Act of 1850, this elaborated
lie is perfectly gratuitous, because even if it were the
truth, it would not help the matter in the least. The
framera of the Federal constitution were neither so
foolish nor so cruel as to hold out a temptation to
kidnappers by giving to every mere private volunteer
claimant from any slave state, or pretending to be
from some slave state, the right to carry off, on his
mere claim, supported wholly by his own oath and
other ex parte evidence, any resident in any free state,
who thtis, far removed from all friends and help, might
be put to prove his freedom in a country where his
very complexion alone would establish a prima facie
case against him. The constitution contains no pro-
vision for delivering up fugitives from labor to parties
claimant to be conveyed elsewhere, to the end that
the validity of the claim to their service may there be
determined. It provides only for a delivery to the
party to whom such service or labor may be "due." As
to any conveyance elsewhere, not a word is said about

234

DESPOTISM

it in the constitution ; that is only an incident to tha
right to service or labor ; and by the express ttjrms of
the provision, no delivery is required, and of course
no such removal can take place till it is first estab-
lished that such service or labor is due, and due to
the claimant And, notw^ithstanding what he wrote
in his Newburyport letter, Mr. Webster was fully
aware of the true character, in this respect, of the
clause in question. This abundantly appears from
hia own draft of a Fugitive Bill in amendment of the
act of 1793, which, by a sort of judicial blindness,
such as often betrays prevaricators into furnishing
evidence against themselves, he was led to lay before
the senate — for show, however, merely, not for use-
some three weeks after the date of his Newburyport
letter, and perhaps as a supplement to it. That draft,
he told the senate, had been prepared early in the
session — (and probably it was to go with it that the
greater part of his 7th of March speech had also been
prepared) — in conference with some of the most em-
inent members of the profession, and especially with
" a high judicial outhority," [Judge McLean ?j greatly
experienced in questions of this kind. These eminent
advisers had not, indeed, saved the great "expounder
of the constitution " from the obvious oversight of
conferring upon commissioners of the United States
courts complete judicial authority, including the de-
termination upon evidence of "the identity of the
[alleged?] fugitive, the right of the claimant, and the
existence of slavery in the state whence the [alleged ?]
fugitive [was said to have?] absconded." But while
thus, for the convenience of the slave-holders, uncer-
emoniously overriding the constitution in a point as
to which, at least, Mr. Webster's eminent judicial
adviser might have been expected to be specially
vigilant, some attention was still paid to that instru-
ment in another important respect, in which the act
of 1850 entirely disregards it. Mr. Webster's draft
of a bill expressly provided " that if the [alleged ?] fugi-
tive shall deny that he owes service or labor to the

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265

claimant under the laws of the state where he was
[alleged to be ?] held, and after being duly cautioned
as to the solemnities and consequences of an oath,
shall swear to the same, the commissioner or judge
shall forthwith summon a jury of twelve to try the
right of the claimant, who shall be sworn to try the
cause according to evidence, and the commissioner or
judge shall preside at the trial, and determine the com-
petency of the proof."

That the Circuit Court commissioners thus invested
by this draft, as well as by the act of 1850 with high
judicial powers, lacked, in several important respects
already mentioned, the constitutional qualifications
expressly required in judges, was too plain, when once
pointed out, to be denied. Hence the attempt to con-
vert the powers bestowed upon them by the act of
1850 into a merely extraditionary authority — an after-
thought, which owes all the little plausibility it has,
first, to the accidental juxtaposition, in the text of the
Federal constitution, of the provision for the delivery
up of fugitives from labor on " the claim of the party
to whom such labor may be dAie^" with another and
•wholly distinct provision, for delivering up, "on de-
mand of the executive authorities of the state," fugi-
tives " charged, in any state, with treason, felony, or
other crimes, to be removed to the state having juris-
diction of the crime;" and secondly, to a like accident-
al connection of the two subjects in the old fugitive
act of 1793. How the two subjects happened to be
brought into juxtaposition in the text of the constitu-
tion has been shown already in the preceding section.
How they happened to be also brought together in the
act of 1793, we shall proceed to show,— to do which
will lead us back to Mr. Webster's second apology for
the bill of 1850, contained in his Ne wbury port letter-—
his allegation that the bill of 1850 in principle was
but the same thing with the act of 1793.

Of the act of 1793 Mr. Webster's letter gives the fol-
lowing bistorv. " The act of Congress of the 12th of
February, 1793, appears to have been well considered,
23

266

DESPOTISM

and to have passed with little opposition. There ia
no evidence known to me that any body, at the time,
regarded any of its provisions as repugnant to religion,
liberty, the constitittioii, or humanity. The two
senators of Massachusetts, at that time, were the dis-
tingnished legislator and patriot of your own county,
George Cabot, and that other citizen of Massachu-
setts, among the most eminent of his day for talent,
purity of character, and every virtue, Caleb Strong.
Mr. Cabot indeed was one of the committee for pre-
paring the ^''1. It appears to have passed the senate
without a division. In the house of representatives
it was supported by Mr. Goodhue, Mr. Gerry, — both, 1
believe, of your county of Essex, (Mr. Goodhue af-
terwards a senator of the United States, and Mr.
Gerry afterwards vice-president of the United States,)
Mr. Ames, Mr. Bourne, Mr. Leonard, and Mr. Sedge-
wick, members from Massachusetts, and was passed
by a vote of forty-eight to seven ; of these seven one
being from Virginia, one from Maryland, one from New
York, and four from the New England States, and of
these four one, Mr. Tbacher, from Massachusetts.*

*' I am not aware that there exists any published
account of the debates on the nassage of this act. I
have been able to find none ' searched the origi-

nal files, however, and I find <i the papers several
propositions for modifications ai utnendments of va-
rious kinds, but none suggesting the propriety of any
jury trial in the state where the party should be ar-
rested."

This history of the act of 1793 is tolerably correct so
far as it goes. But it omits some details as to the
origin of that act curious in themselves, and some-
what essential to the argument, and which therefore
we proceed to supply. On the 11th of May 1788, a

• Mr. Thacher, it is proper to note, was, in these early Congressoe, the
only consistent and uniform New England oppoeer of elavory and all
ita pretensiom. In those times, indeed for the first thirty years sub-
aeqnent to the adoption of tho Federal constitution, almost all the op-
poJntlon to slavery came from Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

IN AMEEICA.

267

month or two before the Federal constitution became,
by the ratification of nine states, an authoritative act,
a negro named John was seized in the state of Penn-
sylvania, (probably under the allegation that he was
a runaway slave,) by certain persons in disguise, who
bound him and carried him off. On the 11th of. No-
vember following, bills of indictment were found
against one McGune and two others, as having kid-
napped John, and taken him out of the state with in-
tent to sell him as a slave. This proceeding was
brought to the notice of Governor Mifflin on the 13th
of May, 1791, by a memorial of the " Pennsylvania
Society for promoting the abolition of slavery, the
relief of free negroes unlawfully held in bondage, and
for improving the condition of the African race," in
which memorial it was further stated that the indicted
parties had precipitately fled from justice either into
Virginia, where John was held in a state of slavery
by one Nicholas Casey, residing near Romney, or else
into the newly erected state of Kentucky.

Shortly after the receipt of this memorial, MifHin
addressed an official letter to Beverly Pw^ndolph, gov-
ernor of Virginia, enclosing the indictment, and the
memorial, and requesting him to take the proper steps
to cause the fugitives from justice to be delivered up,
as provided for in the constitution, of the United
States. This letter, with its enclosures, Governor Ran-
dolph submitted to James Innis, then attorney gen-
eral of Virginia, who soon after gave an opinion to
the following efllect : 1st. That by the laws of Virginia
the matter charged in the indictments would amount,
as between the individual parties, only to a trespass,
and as between the offenders and the commonwealth
only to a breach of the peace ; that the trespass
might as well be sued for in Virginia as in Pennsylva-
nia, and that, to an indictment for a mere breach of
the peace, the defendants might appear by attorney,
80 that it would be soon enough to deliver them up
after they were convicted. On the presumption, how-
ever, that the offence charged stood on the same

268

DESPOTISM

ground in Pennsylvania that it did in Virginia, it was
of too trifling a nature to come under the description
of the term crime, as used in the Federal constitution.
2d. That the demand was insufficient, in not containing
any proof that the persons demanded were in the
state. 3d. That if the delivery and removal of the
persons demanded could be effected at all, it must be
under the authority of the constitution of the United
States ; but as neither the laws of Virginia nor those
of Congress directed the mode, nor delegated any
authority by which the magistracy of the state could
acquire any legal control over the persons demanded,
no such delivery as request^;d could be made.

This opinion having been transmitted to MifHin,
with Governor Randolph's regi'cts that no means had
yet been provided for carrying into effect so important
an article of the Federal constitution , it was forthwith
laid before President Washington, -w ith copies of all
the other documents, enclosed in a letter from Mifflin,
in which he pointed out Innis's apparent ignorance of
the act of Pennsylvania under which the indictments
had been found, (and which indeed had only been en-
acted March 29, 1788,) by which the forcibly carry-
ing any person out of the state to be sold as a slave
was subjected to a fine of a hundred pounds, and im-
prisonment to hard labor for not less than feix nor
more than twelve months.*

Washington, thus appealed to, submitted the case,
and all the papers connected with it, to Edmund
Randolph, late governor of Virginia, then attorney
general of the United States, who, on the 20th of July,
gave a very lucid opinion upon it. And here let us
observe, that no contemporary authority could be
greater than Edmund Randolph's as to the true in-
terpretation of the constitution. No member of the
Federal convention, not even Madison himself, had

• Thig act had been copied from one paBsed just before in Massa*
chiisetts, where a great excitement had been produced by the
enticement, »f, Boston, of three coloi persons on board a vessel, in
which they ware citrried to the Wert Judies and sold aa slaves.

IN AMERICA.

2m

taken a more active part in framing it, while, as
a lawyer, he had then, and has since had, very few
equalgi, and no superiors. Randolph's opinion em'
braced the following points : 1st. That an indictment
found was a sufiicient charge on which to base a de-
mand, under the clause of the constitution of the
United States, respecting fugitives from justice. 2d.
That the matter charged in the Pennsylvania indict-
ments was a crime within the meaning of that clause,
and that Innis was mistaken in supposing that the
defendants could plead to those indictments by attor-
ney. 3d. That some proof would seem to be necessa-
ry, more than had been offered in this case, that the
parties demanded had fled from justice, and had been
found in the state on which the demand was made.
4th. That, these requisites being fulfilled, no law, either
state or federal, was necessary to authorize their arrest
and delivery. " To deliver up," said Randolph, — and
the argument appears to be wholly unanswerable, —
" to deliver up is an acknowledged federal duty ; and
the law couples with it the right of using all incident-
al measures in order to discharge it. I will not in-
quire how far these incidental means, if opposed to
the constitution and laws of Virginia, ought notwith-
standing to be exercised, because McGulre and hi.s
associates may be surrendered without calling upon
any public oflicer of that state. Private persons may
be employed and clothed with a special authority.
The attorney general [of Virginia] agrees that a law
of the United States might so ordain ; and wherein
does a genuine distinction exist between a power de-
ducible from the constitution, or incidental to a duty
imposed by the constitution, and a power given by Con-
gress as auxiliary to the execution of such a duty ?

" From these premises I must conclude that it would
have been more precise in the governor of Pennsylania
to transmit to the governor of Virginia an authenti-
cated copy of the law creating the offence ; that it
was essential that he should transmit sufficient evi-
dence of McGuire and others having fled from the
23*

270

DESPOTISM

justice of the former, and being founc' in the latter;
that without that evidence the executive of Virginia
ought not to have delivered them up ; that ivith it
they ought not to refuse. The governor of Pennsyl-
vania, however, appears to be anxious that the matter
should be laid before Congress, and perhaps such a
step might content all scruples."*

This opinion of Randolph's was sent by Washing-
ton to Mifflin, who promised, in reply, to renew his
demand, accompanied with the additional evidence
pointed out by Randolph. Of the result we are not
informed ; but when the second Congress came to-
gether, not long after, for ics first session, all the
papers, agreeably to Mifflin's original request, were laid
by the president before that body. These papers
were suffered, in both houses, to lie on their tables
undisturbed. The opinion of Randolph was decided
and emphatic, that to carry out the provision of
the constitution respecting fugitives from justice, no
legislation was necessary ; and if not necessary, why,
then, not constitutional, — though that was a considera-
tion as yet not much attended to,— -since the legislative
power of Congress does not extend to the satisfying of
scruples, but only to cases in which authority to legis-
late is expressly given, or is necessary to carry
out powers conferred by the constitution on the gen-
eral government — to neither of which categories did
this case belong. In the course, however, of the next
session, a committee was appointed in the senate,
consisting of Johnston, of North Carolina, Cabot, of
Massachusetts, and Reed, of Delaware, " to consider
the expediency of a law respecting fugitives from
justice, and persons escaping from the service of their

* It is rather curious that, although several judgeo have referred,
in their opinions, to the origin of the act of 1793, and the correexwnd-
ence bet-ween Governor Mifflin and Randolph, not one of them
ha* even hinted at the existence of Attorney General Randolph's
opinion, which is republished, however, along with the other docu-
ments, in Lowrie & Franklin's great folio Collection of American
State Papers, MiscellnneoiiB Documents, vol. i. p. .39.

IN AMERICA.

271

masters, and to report by bill, (if they think proper ;) "
which committee, about a month after, did report a
bill, which bill, after some modifications, passed into
the fugitive act of 1793.

That act consists of four sections, the first two of
which, relating to fugitives from justice, have been
often vouched in to support the right of Congress to
legislate respecting fugitives from labor. They are
used for that purpose by Story, who, speaking on
behalf of himself and seven other judges of the Su-
preme Court of the United States, in Prig-g" v. Pemi-
si/lvania, (p. 620,) triumphantly flourishes the consti-
tutionality of those sections as never having been
called in question, and their provisions as having been
uniformly acted upon by all the state executives. And
for the best of reasons, too. These sections require
nothing which, independently of the act of 1793, the
governors of the states were not bound to do by the
constitution itself ; and though having no authority
as a law, and in that respect a work of supereroga-
tion, they may, doubtless, have been convenient as
suggesting a uniform method of complying with the
requisition of the constitution. As to the penalty
inflicted by the second section on persons rescuing
fugitives while under transportation, the constitution-
ality of that provision seems to rest upon the same
alleged authority in Congress, under which the Federal
courts sustained the constitutionality of the Sedition
law, and of the act to punish counterfeiters of the bills
of the Bank of the United States ; and I therefore turn
it over, without further comment, to be dealt with by
the adherents of the Resolutions of '98, in which both
those pena' acts were specially and emphatically de-
nounced as unconstitutional, for want of power in
Congress to enact them. Yet, to help the better
to a decision of the point, I will venture to suggest
the inquiry, whether the governors of the states could
be subjected, by federal legislation, to fine and im-
prisonment, for declining to surrender fugitives from
Justice ?

272

DESPOTISM

We come now to the two latter sections of the act
of 1793, — those relating to fugitives from labor.

" For many years," so we are told by Mr. Webster
in his Newburyport letter, " little or no complaint was
made against this law, nor was it supposed to be
guilty of the offences and enormities which have since
been charged upon it. It was passed for the purpose
of complying with a direct and solemn injunction
of the constitution. It did no more than was be-
lieved to be necessary to accomplish that single pur-
pose ; and it did that in a cautious, mild manner,
to be every where conducted according to judicial
proceedings.

" I confess I see no more objections to the provis-
ions of this law than was seen by Mr. Cabot, Mr.
Strong, Mr. Goodhue, and Mr. Gerry ; and such pro-
visions appear to me, as they appeared to them, to be
absolutely necessary, if we mean to fulfil the duties
positively and peremptorily enjoined upon us by the
constitution of the country." [How so, if, in Mr.
Webster's judgment, as declared in his 7th of March
speech, the constitutional injunction was entirely on
the states ?]

" But since the agitation caused by the abolition
societies and abolition presses has, to such an extent,
excited the public mind, these provisions have been
rendered obnoxious and odious. Unwearied efforts
have been made, and too successfully, to rouse the
passions of the people against them, and under the
cry of universal freedom, and under that other cry.
that there is a rule for the government of imblic men
and private men which is of superior obligation to the
constitution of the country^ several of the states have
enacted laws to hinder^ obstruct and defeat the enact*
menta in this act of Congress to the utmost of their
power."

Such are the representations of Mr. Webster ; such
is hit* attempt to hide the nakedness of the act of 1850
and his own under the skirts of the act of 1793, and
of its respectable authors and supporters. Those of

IN AMERICA.

273

them mentioned by Mr. Webster were all Federalists,
(with the single exception of Gerry) some of them
very ultra Federalists, but not one of them disposed
to erect the Federal constitution either into a Diana
of Ephesus by the perpetual shouting of whose name
all gainsayers were to be silenced, or into a golden
calf, which priests and people were alike to fall down to
and worship, to the forgetfulness of any Higher Law.
It is due, therefore, to the memory of these worthy
men, and no less so to the assailants of the act of
1793, to state, that although that act was complained
of from the very moment of its enactment by the
Pennsylvania Abolition Society and others in repeated
memorials to Congress, as opening altogether too
wide and dangerous a door to kidnappers, yet that
the indignation against it, to the results of which Mr.
"Webster more particularly refers, grew mainly not so
much out of any thing really contained in the act
itself, or intended by those who enacted it, as out of
a most ungracious, cruel, and gratuitous interpretation
forced out of it by a set of " consummate lawyers " of
the Scott school, — men who regard personal rights
in comparison with tlij protection of property, at
least the personal rights of the poor and helpless, as
nothing; and who, ridiculously expecting to chain
up and tie down the natural sentiments of justice and
equity by the dry withes of their subtle ingenuity, in
attempting, like the authors of the act of 1850, to
lay a rising breeze, succeeded only, as the authors of
that act have done, in raising a whirlwind.

An examination of the brief Federal statute book
of 1793,— for then it was brief, — will lead us to the
evident model after which the fugitive act of 1793
was drawn ; which model will not a little assist us to
ascertain the idea entertained by those who framed
the act of 1793, and by those who passed it with so
little debate, of its real meaning and practical opera-
tion.

Among the acta passed by the first Congress was
one, approved July 20tb, 1790, « For the government

274

DESPOTISM

and regulatiou of seamen in the merchant service,"
chiefly modelled after the English acts of parliaments
on that subject, and of which the 7th section con-
tained the following provisions : " That if any seaman
or mariner, who shall have signed a contract to perform
a voyage, shall, at any port or place, desert, or shall
absent himself from such ship or vessel without leave
of the master, or officer commanding ia the absence
of the master, it shall be lawful for any justice of the
peace within the United States (upon complaint of
the master) to issue his warrant to apprehend such
deserter, and bring him before such justice ; and if it
shall then appear, by due proof, that he has signed a
contract within tl?.e intent and meaning of this act,
and that the voyage agreed for is not finished, altered,
or the contract otherwise dissolved, and that such
seaman or mariner has deserted the ship or vessel, or
absented himself without leave, the said justice shall
commit him to the house of correction or common
jail of the city, tov%rn, or place, there to remain until
the said ship or vessel shall be ready to proceed on
her voyage, or till the master shall require his discharge,
and then to be delivered to the said master, he paying
all the costs of such commitment, and deducting the
same out of the wages due to such seaman or mariner."

Now, Mr. Cabot, one of the members of the com-
mittee of three by which the act of 1793 was reported,
was not only a merchant, but he had been a shipmas-
ter ; and it was undoubtedly he who suggested to his
colleagues this provision respecting fugitive seamen,
as a model to be followed in the case of other fugi-
tives from labor. Hence the 3d section of the act of
1793, which provides, " That when a person held to
labor in any of the United States, or in either of the
territories on the north-west or south of the river Ohio,
under the laws thereof, shall escape into any other of
the said states, or territory, the person to whom such
labor or service may be due, his agent or attorney,
is hereby empowered to seize or arrest such fugitive
from labor, and to take him or her before any judge

IN AMERICA.

275

of the Circuit or District Courts of the United States,
residing or being within the state, or before any
magistrate of a county, city, or town corporate,
wherein suoh seizure or arrest shall be made ; and
upon proof to the satisfaction of such judge or magis-
trate, either by oral testimony, or affidavit taken be-
fore and certified by a magistrate of any such state
or territory, that the person so seized and arrested
doth, under the laws of the state or territory from
which he or she fled, owe service or labor to the per-
son claiming him br her, it shall be the duty of such
judge or magistrate to give a certificate thereof to
such claimant, his agent or attorney, which shall be
sufficient warrant for removing the said fugitive from
labor to the state or territory from which he or she
fled." The fourth and last section of the act imposes
a penalty of five hundred dollars, to be recovered in
any court proper to try the same, for the benefit of
the claimant, from any one who should obstruct him
in rescuing his fugitive, or should rescue such fugitive
from him, or should harbor or conceal such fugitive,
after notice that he was claimed as such.

As the resemblance is sufficiently obvious between
the provision for arresting fugitive seamen and that
for arresting other fugitives from labor, so the differ-
ence of procedure in the two cases is easily explained.
In the latter case, there being no documentary evidence
like the shipping paper to go upon, no action was to
be taken by the judge or magistrate till after the arrest.
The whole responsibility of that, and of taking care
to seize nobody to whose services he bad not a legal
right, was very properly thrown upon the claimant,
who was thus precluded from making use of process
of arrest obtained on his own bare oath or other
ex parte evidence, for any fraudulent or kidnapping
purposes — a particular in which there is an essential
difference between the act of 1793 and that of
1850.

The intention of the act for the arrest of fugitive
mariners, and that of 1793 for the arrest of fugitivet

2?6

DESPOTISM

from labor, seeras to be clear. That intention evi-
dently was to provide a summary process to be used
in cases where there was no dispute about the facts or
as to the right of the claimant, leaving open to any
person against whom such summary decision might be
made, all the courts, state and federal, and all the
processes, whether Vio-it of habeas corpus, writ de
homine replegiando (or of personal replevin), — this lat^t
involving a trial by jury,— or any other commonly
resorted to by persons restrained of their liberty, or
seeking to get possession of the persons of others.
The commitment of the justice in the one case, his
warrant in the other, was to be a lawful authority for
retaining the seaman, or adjudged fugitive from
labor, as against any private interference ; but neither
of them was intended to act as a bar to full investi-
gation into the rights of the parties by the ordinary
course of law. lam not aware that any court or any
lawyer has ever yet pretended that the action of a
justice of the peace in committing an adjudged de-
serting seaman to prison, or to the custody of the
master, is absolutely final and conclusive, turning the
seaman over to his suit for false imprisonment, and
not to be otherwise inquired into or reviewed by any
court, state or federal : and it was the pretended
discovery in the act of 1793, of this alarming potency,
that first raised against it that loud and increasing
clamor of which Mr, Webster so bitterly complains.

Constant recourse to histofical facts, and an explora-
tion of contemporaneous ideas, have been deemed
essential to the true interpretation of the constitu-
tional provisions bearing, or supposed to bear, on
slavery. Nor are such external aids any the less ne-
cessary towards understanding the course of judicial
decisions touching the same subject The conclusion
of the war of 1812-15 was followed by a rapid
extension of the cultivation of cotton, which speedily
grew, with the decline of the foreign demand for bread-
stufis, to be the chief article of export. This extension
of cotton cultivation, besides those constantly expand-

IN AMEEICA.

277

ing schemes of territorial aggrandizement in a southern
direction, so vigorously sketched by Mr. Webster in his
7th of March speech, also gave rise to that domestic
slave-trade — that breeding of slaves for sale — -a point
too delicate for that class of preachers who " never
mention hell to ears polite," and therefore omitted by
Mr. Webster,-— yet chiefly instrumental in producing
that change of opinion at the south on the subject
of slavery upon which he dwells with so mucli
emphasis in his 7th of March speech ; and, indeed, a
coincident change of opinion at the North, at least
among ship-owners, merchants, manufacturers, and
politicians, no less remarkable.

This domestic slave-trade was a rude shock to that
patriarchal character to which, on some of the older
plantations of Maryland, Virginia and the Garoiinas,
slavery had attained some shadow of title.* By keep-
ing constantly before the eyes of the enslaved the
gloomy prospect of the auction-block and the slave
trader's chain-gang, it greatly increased their inclina-
tion to run away. If they must quit the localities to

• This trade, at its first commencement, waa not less loudly de-
nounced in Maryland and Virginia than the African slave trade had
been during the revolutionarj' period. John Randolph Btigmatized
it, in 1816, on the floor of Congress, as "heinous and abominable^"
«' inhuman and iilegaL" Even Governor Williams, of South Caro-
lina, spoke of it, in one of his messages to the legislature of that
state, as " a remorseless and merciless traffic," a ceaseless dragging
along the streets and highways of a crowd of stiffering victims to
minister to insatiable avarice," not only •« condemned by enhghtened
humanity, wise policy and the prayers of the just," but tending, by
its introduction of slaves of all descriptions, to •« defile the delightful
avocations of private life by the presence of convicts and malefactors."
(See HUdreth's History of the United States, vol. vi. pp. 613-14.)

This same traffic, however, proving the chief resource of the im-
poveiished planters of Virginia, Maryland and the Carolinas, many
of whom now live, to use the expressive local phraseology, by eating
their negroes, it \a& come to be cherished and defended in those
states with as much zeal as the merchants of Bristol and Liverpool
ever exhibited on behalf of the African slave-trade, or as is exhibited
on behalf of it to-day by the petLy kings who live by it on the
African coast.

For Mr. Webster's remarks on the change of sentiment at the
South, and some correcticns of the exaggerations into irMch Ixe hao
fallen, see Appendix.

21

278

DESPOTISM

which habit bad so strongly attached them, they
greatly preferred the free air of the North to the fever-
breeding swamps of the South. It produced, also,
another result not less deplorable. Traders for the
southern market were found ready enough to purchase
" likely negroes " without any particular inquiry into
the means by which the pr session of them had been
acquired ; and in the free states nearest the slave-
holding frontier, and in which the free colored people
were the most numerous, so great were the abuses by
ignorant and corrupt justices of the peace and other
local magistrates, of the authority vested in them by
the act of 1793, and the facilities thereby afforded
for kidnapping, as soon to give occasion to very loud
complaints. An attempt was even made in 1817, in
the senate of the United States, to amend that law,
so as to guard against these abuses ; but apprehen-
sions lest the proposed changes might diminish the
facilities for recovering runaways caused that attempt
to be opposed and abandoned. The border slave-
holders, on the other hand, provoked at the shelter,
aid and concealment often afforded in the free states,
and especially in Pennsylvania, to their runaway
slaves, called loudly for a still more stringent law ;
and in 1818, after a pretty warm struggle, they suc-
ceeded in carrying a bill of that sort through both
houses of Congress. That bill, a sort of forerunner
of the act of 1850, authorized the claimant to estab-
lish his claim on ex parte evidence before some judge
of his own state, having done which he was io be
entitled to an executive demand upon the governor
of the state in which the fugitive might be found,
heavy penalties being imposed upon all who refused to
aid in the arrest. The senate added a provision, that
after the removal, the person removed should be proved
to be the same with the person claimed by some evi-
dence other than the oath of the claimant. This
amendment, by giving the northern members time to
bethink themselves, defeated the passage of the bill,
which, after its return from the senate, was left, not-

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withstanding repeated attempts to take it up, to iie
and to die on the table of the house.*

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania had lately
(1816) given high oftence to the slave-holders by de-
ciding, in the case of The Commonwealth v. HoUoway,
2 Seargcnt & Rawle's Eeports, 305, apparently on
impregnable grounds, that the children of fugitive
slave women born in Pennsylvania more than a year
after the arrival of their mothers in the state, were
born free ; and that, such children being neither fugi-
tives, nor owing service to any body as slaves, no
claimant from abroad could touch them. In 1819
came before the same court the case of Wright
V. Deacon, 5 Seargent & Rawle, 62, on a writ of
de homiiie replegiando sued out against Deacon,
keeper of the Philadelphia jail, who held in custody
the plaintift' Wright, at the request, and for the tem-
porary convenience, of a claimant who had obtained a
certificate to remove Wri^t, as a fugitive from service.
The object was to obtain a revievvr, and a trial by
jury, of the grounds on which the certificate had been
granted. But the court, taking a far less lawyer-like as
well as less statesman-like view than that of Edmund
Randolph above cited, held, 1st. That " it required a
law [of Congress] to regulate the manner in which
the claim should be made and the fugitive delivered
up," and, on this ground, that the act of 1793 was
constitutional — the first reported judicial decision ever
pronounced on that point ; and 2dly. That a certifi-
cate granted under the act of 1793 was absolutely
conclusive as to the rights of both parties, at least until
the removal authorized by it had been completed ; and
that after such certificate had once been granted, no
state court, nor indeed any court, had any right to inter-
fere, or to re-examine the case, either by writ of habeas
corpusj writ of personal replevin, or any other method.
This opinion, in which the three judges concurred,

«• For further particulan respecting this bill, see Hildreth's Eittorg
qf tha United StaUt, voL vL pp. 636-7.

2B0

DESPOTISM

was delivered by William Tilgbman, the chief justice.
It is quite short, and the following paragraph em-
braces the most e^isentiai pari of it. " It plainly appears
from the whole scope and tenor of the constitution
and act of Congress, that the fugitive was to be de-
livered up on a summary proceeding, without the
delay of a formal trial in a court of common law.
But if he had really a right to freedom, that right
was not impaired by that proceeding; he was placed
juat in the situation in which he stood before he fled,
and might prosecute the right in the state to which
he belonged." Here we see the origin of Mr. Web-
ster's idea of extradition, an idea involving a prejudg-
ment of the case in two of its most essential points ;
wholly cutting off from his most obvious rights
every person certified as a fugitive, but not such in
reality* and every pcson actually a fugitive, but cer-
tified as owing service to a claimant having no legal
title tc such service. What a heartless, insolent
mockery to tell a native citizen of Pennsylvania,
about to be transferred to South Carolina on a certi-
ficate, purchased perhaps by a bribe of five dollars —
for it is but reasonable to suppose that some state
magistrates may be bought at the average price es-
tablished by the act of 1850 for United States com-
missioners; — ^what a mockery to tell such a person,
about to be placed in a pestiferous South Carolina
rice swamp, with an iron chain and ball of fifty
pounds' weight attached to his leg, and an iron collar
with four prongs to it about his neck, that his right to
freedom will not be impaired by this proceeding; that
he is placed in the same situation in which he stood
before the certificate was granted, and that he can
prosecute his right in the state to which he belongs !
Such is the enormous absurdity involved in this
opinion of Tilghman's, and in that of every judge
and lawyer by whom it has been followed, all grow-
ing out of the gratuitous assumption, contained also in
the very phraseology of Mr. Webster's draft of a bill,
that every person claimed, or at least every person certi-

iN AMERICA.

S8l

fied, must be a fugitive, and a fugitive owing labor
to the person who claims him. But besides this pre-
judgment of the case in its most essential particulars,
this opinion and all its echoes totally overlook the
plain distinction between cases where the right of the
claimant is confessed, or not contested, — as, for
instance, in the case of tenants holding over, in which
cases alone summary proceedings for the enforcement
of rights are ever allowed, — and contested cases, in
which it is the undoubted common law right of every
party to have a thorough trial, both as to facts and
law ; especially before so serious a step is taken as
the delivering him up as a chattel into the absolute
power of another. So far from infringing that right,
the Federal constitution has taken care specially to
guard it ; and, surely, it is one from which no party,
however humble or helpless, is to be ousted by any im-
plication or construction, nor, indeed, by any thing short
of the most express .^nd positive provision in terms.

Chief Justice Tilghman was a lawyer of moderate
temper and decent abilities, (and the same description
will apply to his colleagues), belonging to that very
large class of jurists, to make one of which requires
nothing but an ordinary share of judgment, diligence,
and experience,~a kind of men sufficiendy well
adapted to the ordinary routine of the bench, but
pretty certain to make some egregious blunder the mo-
ment they attempt to step beyond it A decided Fed-
eralist, one of John Adams's midnight judges, Tilgh-
man had been ousted from that seat by the repeal of the
act under which he held office, but shortly after had
been raised to the chief-justiceship of Penniaylvania by
Governor McKean, at a time when that political
gamester, having quarrelled with the more radical
Democrats to wTsom he was indebted for his original
election, had found it necessary to sustain himself in
office by courting the aid of the Federalists. Tilgh-
man and his colleagues probably hoped that so per-
emptory a decision might help to quiet the rising
excitement in Pennsylvania on the subject of the
24*

282

DESPOTISM

Teciamation of fugitives occasioned by the growing
frequency of such ciairns, and of kidnappings alleged
to be perpetrated under their cover, and to which
the contemporaneous controversy as to the extension
of slavery into Missouri added no little fervor. But
if such was their expectation, they found themselves
nuritaken. Their harsh and unwarrantable inteipreta-
lion of the act of 1793 at once overwhelmed that
act with universal odium. Hence arose the agita-
tion against it of which Nr. Webster so bitterly
complains ; an agitation in which the legislatures
of the Middle States took the lead, by enactments
of which the object was to put some restriction upon
the despotic energ}^ which Tilghmcn and his colleagues
had construed into that act; restrictions for which a
recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United
States seemed to open the way.

That court, in the celebrated and mur i contested
case of Hunter v. Martinis Lessee^ (1 Wheaton, 330,)
decided in 1816, in maintaining their rig^t under the
constitution to issue to the Supreme Courts of the
states writs of error, in cases involving ti e interpreta-
tion of the constitution and laws of the Ujjited States,
had called attention to a provision of the Federal
constitution, which, under the impulse of economizing
Federal officers and salaries, seems,. on more occa-
sions than one, to have escaped the attention of the
members of the earlier Congresses, though so many of
them had sat in the Federal convention. That pro-
vision required that " the judicial power of the United
States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in
such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to
time order and establish; " which clause was held, in the
case above cited, to prohibit Congress " to vest any
portion of the judicial power of the United States, ex-
cept in courts ordained and established by itself." U pen
the strength of this doctrine, and very soon after it was
declared, occasion was found, in the case of certain
parties bound over to trial for violation of the neutrality
acts in fitting out privateers to sail under the flags of the

!N AMKIilCA.

283

new South American republics, to call in queBtion
the authority conferred by the 33d section of the
judiciary act of 1789, upon justices of the peace,
concurrently with the judges of the United States
District Courts, to arrest and commit for trialj or to
release on bail, persons charged with offences against
the United States. This objection was sustained
by some of the district judges, and Congress, in
consequence, passed an act, (March 1, 1817,) con-
ferring these same concurrent powers of arrest, ex-
amination, commitment, and release on bail, upon
certain commissioners, whom, by a previous act of
February 20, 181.2, the Circuit Courts had been au-
thorized to appoint for the purpose of taking affidavits
and acknowledgments of bail in civil cases. Such
was the origin of judicial powers exercised by com-
missioners of the Circuit Courts. But though these
new officers were " ordained and established " by
Congress, still they were obnoxious, in common with
justices of the peace, to other objections already men-
tioned—having neither .he tenure of office nor the
stated salary required by the very same section of
the constitution, and being neither appointed by the
president nor subject to cc nfirmation by the senate ;
guarantees against partiality and corruption quite as
necessary in committing officers, and especially in such
officers as these commissioners have come to be, under
the act of 1845 and the fugitive act of 1850, as in those
whose decisions as to matters of fact require the cooper-
ation of a jury, and whose whole procedure is checked
by the solemnity and notoriety of a formal trial.

Availing themselves of the decision of the Supreme
Court of the United States, in Hunter v. Martinis
Lessee^ that Congress had no authority to command
the services of the state tribunals, the assembly of
Pennsylvania, justly shocked at the new interpretation
put upon the act of 1793 by their Supreme Court,
passed a law, (March 22, 1820,) by which the execu-
tion of the act of 1793 was restricted, so far as the
state officers of Pennsylvania were concerned, to the

DESPOTISM

judges of the County Courts, who were required,
whenever they granted a certificate, to tile witi. the
clerk of the county a record of the whole proceedings,
containing the names of the parties and witnesses,
anc. a statement of the evidence upon which the cer
tif cate had been granted. Aldermen and justices of
the peace were forbidden to grant certificates at all ;
and it was made a felony to carry any negro or mu-
latto out of the state, without process, with intent to
hold him as a slave. Afterwards, by an act of 1826,
passed at the earnest request of the authorities of
Maryland, the law of 1820 was so far modified as,
under certain restrictions, to restore jurisdiction to
justices of the peace and aldermen ; but the other
provisions of the act of 1820, and especially the
penalties for removal without process, were continued
in full force.

Nor was Pennsylvania the only state to legislate
on this subject Her act was subsequently (1836-7)
incorporated, with some trifling modifications, into
the statute book of New Jersey. At a still earlier
day the legislature of New York, in preparing a
revised code for that state, (1827-30,) imposed several
similar restrictions upon the action of her magistrates
and judges under the act of 1793, She not only pro-
hibited, as Pennsylvania had, the carrying away
of any alleged fugitive slave without process, but all
claimants who failed to make out their claims were
subjected to heavy ccjts and damages. The same act,
in defiance of Tilghman's decision, specially reiserved
to all alleged fugitives for whom certificates might be
jj'ranted, a right to review that proceeding, upon
habeas corpus or writ de homine replegiando, a pro-
cess which involved, as we have already mentioned,
a trial by jury ; which trial by jury was also authorized
by a subsequent act in cases in which the rehearing
took place under a writ of habeas corpus.

The bench of the Supreme Court of the "Aate of
Nev/ York has often been occupied by very able
jurists. At that time, under a recent reorganization,

IN AMERICA.

285

it consisted cf three judges, none of them of any ex-
traordinary reputation, and whatever Hiighfc be their
political professions, all of them as thoroughly Fede-
ral, at least in slave cases, as Tilghmau himself.
This Supreme Court, in 1834, in the case of Jack v.
Mariin, (12 Wendall, 811,) set aside these provisions
of the state legislature by holding, 1st. That Congress
had the right to legislate to give effect to the clause
in the Federal constitution respecting fugitives from
labor ; 2dly. That the act of 1793 overrode and ousted
all state legislation on the subject ; and 3d. That the
object of the constitutional provision evidently being
the return of fugitive slaves, the act of 1793 " should
receive a construction such as, consistently with its
terms, would operate most effectually to secure the
end "—in other words, that any protection of the cit-
izens of New Yo'-k against false or unfounded claims
ought not to be thought of or provided for, when such
provision might be liable to interfere with the most sum-
mary proceedings in favor of southern slave claimants!*
This opinion, a mere wire-drawing in pages of what
Tiighman had expressed in paragraphs, was pro-
nounced by Judge Nelson ; and according to a very
remarkable coincidence, (if, in fact, it was entirely
accidental,) upon the first vacancy he was raised to a
seat upon the bench of the Supreme Court of the
United States, successor to Thompson, and by the
side of Baldwin, both of whom, it is worthy of note,
had, previously to their appointments, taken strong
slave-holding ground on the question of extending
slavery into Missouri. And we may add, what makes
these coincidences the more remarkable, that since the
date of the Missouri compromise, not a single northern

* This case afterwards went np to the New York Court of Errore.
but was decided there (14 Wendall, 507) in favor of the claimant, oa
the ground that the plaintiff, by his pleas, had confessed himself the
claimant'3 slave. Any expression of opinion by the court on the con-
etitutionality of the act of 1793, or upon the New York statute provis-
ions, was carefully a%'oided, although, Chancellor Walworth, sitting as
one of the judges, took that occasion to pronounce a formal ooinion,
Already referred to, against the constitatioaality of the act of 17^3.

986

DESPOTJSM

man — -with the exception of j Ige McLean, who was
appointed for political convej:. j:jce to get hinri out of
an office which it was desired to liii otherwise— has
been raised to the bench of the Supreme Court of
the United States, except under similar circumstances ;
at least the only other possible exception is Judge
Grier, the successor of Baldwin, whose reputation,
previous to his appointment, — though, like his prede-
cessor, a man of decided legal ability, — was so merely
local, that I am not at present able to specify the
particular services, if any, which he had rendered to
the slave power. But that the man was well known,
his violence, I may even say his ferocity, on the bench,
in behalf of the law of I80O, sufficiently shows.

Prior to the elev ition of these latter serviceable
judges, and while Thompson and Baldwin still sat in
the Supreme Court, the question of the constitution-
ality of the act of 1793, and of the true interpretation
and effect of the clause in the Federal constitution
respecting the delivering up of fugitives from service,
came before that court in the celebrated case, already
repeatedly referred to, of Prigg- v. Pennsylvania.
Prigg, a citizen of Maryland, had been indicted,
under the Pennsylvania act of 1826, for carrying out
of that state, without process or warrant, a negro
woman whom he claimed as his slave, and with her
several of her children, one of which, born more than
a year after the mother's arrival in Pennsylvania, ac-
cord! to a decision of the Supreme Court of
Penn ivania already cited, was born a free person.

After a great deal of controversy between the two
states, Prigg having been demanded as a fugitive
from the justice of Pennsylvania, and the governor
of Maryland, as usual in such cases, refusing to deliver
him up, by an arrangement of the state legislatures
the question of the validity of the law of Pennsyl-
vania was brought before the Supreme Court of the
United States on an agreed statement of facts, in the
form of a special verdict, in which it was admitted,
among other things, that the woman carried off had

IN AMERICA.

287

bfiten Prigg's slave, and had escapee* liom him into
Pennsylvania, and also that one of the childre/i car-
ried off with her had been born in Pennsylvania mord
than a year after her arrival there.

All the judges agreed that Prigg was entitled to be
discharged from the indictment; but in the view
which they took of the law of the case, they differed
not a little. Story, who pronounced the judgment
of the court, began by a most remarkable avowal.
The court, he said, did not mean to be held to apply
to any other clause whatever of the constitution, any
rules which, in the present case, they might see fit to
lay down for interpreting the provision respecting
fugitives from labor. In fact the constitution was so
peculiar an instrument, made so much in the spirit of
compromise, that ail general rules for its interpretation
seemed out of the question. It must be interpreted
in the same spirit in which it had been made, and each
clause must be handled by itself, according to the good
discretion of the court.

In promulgating this new rule of judicial interpre-
tation, or rather this declaration of independence and
disregard of all rules, perhaps calculated to increase
the already somewhat too " glorious uncertainty of
the law," but also very convenient for timid and time-
serving tribunals, the learned judge appears to have
forgotten— or perhaps he only intended to confirm by a
striking practical application of it — ^the strong remark
of Lord Camden, that " the discretion of a judge is
the law of tyrants^ in the best ofttiraes caprice, in the
worst every vice, folly, and passion of which human
nature is liable." Its inui)ediat« object, no doubt, was
to save his brethren, and indeed himself, from certain
obvious charges of inconsistency, some of which will
be presently pointed out

After this singular preamble, Story proceeded to
state a point in which all the judges except McLean
agreed ; namely, that the clause in the Federal consti-
tution respecting fugitives from labor is of potency
and vigor enough, independently of any special Fed-

288

DESPOTISM

eral or state legislation, to give to a party to ^^hora
labor is really due, under the laws of any state, the
right, in any and every other state, to seize, without
any process, and to carry off his fugitive whenever he
can do so without any act of violence amounting to
a breach «>f the peace. This point was in perfect
accordance v^dth the opinion of Edmund Randolph,
heretofore cited. It had been expressly ruled by the
Supreme Courts of New York and Massachusetts in
the cases of Glen v. Hodges^ (9 Johnson, 67,) and of
Commonweafth v, Griffiih^ (2 Pickering, 11,) as well as
by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in the case
of Wright v. Deacon. And according to the view set
forth at the beginning of this section, such a right
of seizure, without process, and without any special
legislative provision for it, must exist in all the states
whose local laws, as is generally the case, concede a
similar right of recaption whenever the control of
custody of the person of one individual is vested, by
the law, in another. But of course ail such recaptions
are subject, as in all other cases of the exercise of a
similar power, to have their grounds inquired into by
the state courts.

Yet though supported by such authorities, the rule
of constitutional interpretation here adopted seems
in direct conflict with a decision made by this same
Supreme Court of the United States only the
very year before, in a case involving the effect and
force of a provision in the constitution of the state
of Mississippi. That constitution contained the fol-
lowing clause : " The introduction of slaves into
this state as merchandise or for sale shall be prohibit*
ed from and after the first day of May, 1833 ; provided
the actual, settler or settlers shall not be prohibited
from purchasing slaves in any state in this Union, and
bringing them into this state for his own individual
use till 1845," — ^which clause, in the case of Gtavet
Sf al V. Slaughter^ (15 Wheaton, 449,) had been set
up as invalidating a note given for slaves brought into
Misnissippi as merchandise, and sold there sabseq^tent'

289

ly to May 1833. In that case, for the protection of
the slave-traders, who had retained Clay and Webster
as their counsel, the court held that this constitutional
provision was a mere injunction on the legislature,
and of no effect till drst it had been complied ^th
by the enactment of a law for enforcing it It is,
however, but justice to state, that three of the judges,
Story, McKinley, and Baldwin, dissented from this
decision, while a fourth, Daniel, who now conourrad
with the majority, was not then a member of the
court. Tha two former iiad held, consistently enough
with their present opinion, tlat the constitutional
provision was efficacious in itself, and the contract
therefore void. Baldwin did not deny the right of a
state entirely to prohibit the introduction of slaves as
a matter of internal policy, but he regarded the pro-
vision in the constitution of Mississippi as a bare
attempt to regulate the internal slave-trade, and to
give to residents in the state advantages over citizens
of other states, and on that ground he held the pro-
vision void, as conflicting with the exclusive right of
Congress to i^gulate trade betw^een the states.

Such had been the rule of constitutional interpreta-
tion held by the Supreme Court of the United States
in 1841. In 1842 the convenience of slave-holding
seemed to require a totally opposite decision, and,
true to their doctrine of being tied up by no rules,
the majority of the court now ran headlong with
Story into the opposite extreme. Not only did they
find in the bare constitutional injunction, with respect
to fugitives from labor, an indefeasible right of reciap-
ture, independent of all special legislation state or
national, — ^they allowed Story to put forth, in their
name, the extravagant statement that " the constitu-
tional clause puts the right to the service and labor
upon the same ground, and to the same extent, in
every other state as in the state to which the slave
escaped, and in which he was held to service or labor; "
and that " any state law that irdemtpts, limits^ delays,
and postpones the right of the owner to the immediate
25

DESPOTISM

possession oi iis slave, or the immediate command of
his services, operating pro ianto as a discharge, is nn-
constitational." "Whence it would foilow, that a Vir-
ginia slave-holder has the right, not only to recapture
his runaway slave in Massachusetts, but, if he pleases,
there to beat, work, imprison, or starve hira, at his
pleasure, short of immediate death, (even the statute
against cruelty to animals being unconstitutional as
to him) ; and, if the slave be a woman, of compelling
her to share his bed as his concubine,— all of which
are " incidents " in Virginia to the right of slave-hold-
ing ;— and to continue to enjoy these incidents for any
period that he may choose to remain in Massachusetts.
Some such rights have been claimed, indeed, by some
of the slave-holders as appertaining to them in the
territories ; but never yet, so far as I know, have any
of them pretended, under any circumfitances, to any
such rights within the limits of a free state. Even
the claimants of fugitive slaves have been too modest
and forbearing to attempt any thing of the sort, not-
withstanding this high judicial warrant for doing so.

But not content with thus giving to the master of a
fugitive slavo, found within the limits of a free state,
all the rights, including the right of recapture without
warrant, which hfe would have had at home, Stx)ry,
with some other judges, (McLean now supplying the
place of Baldwin, who dissented,) goes on to hold, not
only to the right, but to the imperative duty, of Con-
gress to reenforce this constitutional provision by special
legislation. The master " may not be able to lay his
hand upon the slave. He may not be able to enforce
his rights against persons who either secrete, or conceal,
or withhold the slave. He may be restricted, by local
legislation, as to the modes of proofs of his ownership,
as to the courts in which he shall sue, and as to the
actions which he may bring, or the process he may
use to compel the delivery of the slave ; " — that is to
Bay, he may be put upon precisely the same level as
to his remedies with other claimants of property or
personal rights, whether native or foreign. But this,

m AMERICA.

291

according to the Supreme Court of the United Spates,
would be a gross and intolerable violation of the pe-
culiar and sacred rights secured by the constitutioa to
the owners of fugitive slaves ; for the sustentation of
which rights it is the duty of Congrc^s to interfere,
and, under the judicial authority vested in ike general
gnvemirientt to provide, at whatever risk to free cit-
izens of non-slave-holding states, a swift and certain
method of delivery, such as will leave to fugitive slaves
no possible chance of escape. The constitutionality
of the act of 1793 is thus placed by the Suprjeme
Court of the United States upon the express ground
(Mr. Webster and other apolo^sta for the act of 1850
to the contrary notwithstanding) that the surrender
of a fugitive from labor is, "in the strictest sense, a
controversy between the pariieS) and a case, under the
constitution of the United States, within the express
delegation of judicial power, given by that instrument"
As to the objection that the justices of the peace and
other state magistrates in whom the authority to grant
certificates is concurrently vested are state officers, the
court hastily pass by that, with the suggestion, that
though not bound to exercise this jurisdiction, still
they may do so, as long as the states do not pro-
hibit them. But suppose this assertion to be consist-
ent (which it hardly seems to be) with the doctrine so
peremptorily laid down in Martin v. Hunter's Lessee,
or supposing this new doctrine to be the better law,
which must be esteemed very doubtful, still it does
not touch the other and unanswerable objections of
want of proper tenure and salary.

We come now to another point of the case, in
which there was less unanimity. Story, Wayne,
McKinley, and Catron held — ^and on this point they
were again supported by McLean, thus still making
a majority of the court— that not only was it the duty
as weU as right of Congress to enforce by legislation
the surrender of fugitives from labor, but that the right
to legislate on this subject was vested exclusively in
Congress. It was this point doubtless that chiefly

DESPOTISM

recommended the decision of the court to Story. Not
only did it gratify his ultra Federal ideas, in which,
though raised to the bench as a Jeffersonian Democrat,
be far outran those eminent Federalists, Chief Justices
Marshall and Taney, but it seerned to him, as he
afterwards boasted in private conversation, to strike a
deadly blow* at the surrender of fugitive slaves, by
relieving the states from all obligation, to cooperate
in it. Of the four judges who went with Story on
this point, three were from slave-holding circuits ; but
as those circuits were remote from the frontier, they
did not feel the immediate smart either of having lost
slaves themselves, or of sympathy with friends and
neighbors who had. Taney and Daniel were differently
situated, and these two border judges, supported by

■ Thompson, whom the instinct and habit of servitude
naturally carried along with them, protested with all
their might against the decision of the majority.
They agreed, indeed, with Story and the others, — for
Balawin also went to this extent,— that the states were
prohibited from passing any special laws that might
m any way conflict with the most summary recovery
of fugitive slaves ; but they insisted also (see Taney's
opinion, p. 62?,) that the constitution enjoined it as
a duty, no Idss upon the states than upon Congress,
"to protect and support the owner while endeavoring
to obtain the possession of his property." That is to
say, while the states were prohibited by the Federal
constitrrtion from affording the least protection to
their own citizens, seized by kidnappers under pretence
of being fugitives from labor, at the same time they

- were bound to afford all possible aid to slave-owners,
even at the imminent risk of facilitating kidnapping !
Such is another of the absurd consequences, of which
this case is so full, to which false assumptions in-
evitably lead, in legal no less than in mathematical
reasoning. It were well that lawyers and judges
were as sensible as mathematicians to the logical
effects of a reductio ad absurdum.

Baldwin, assenting to the constitutional right

IM AMERICA.

S93

maintained by all the judges except McLean, of re-
caption and removal without warrant, notwithstand-
ing special state laws to the contrary, concurred in the
judgment of the court because it was admitted that
the woman carried off was Prigg'a slave. He also ad-
mitted, that if any special legislation on the subject
were needed, Congress alone could so legislate. But be
held such legislation unnecessary, and therefore uncon-
stitutional, thus seeming to corae up very i}early, if not
quite,— 'for we have no detailed statement of his views,
— to the doctrine maintained in this section. Baldmn
was a lawyer, and a very able one ; nor is his author-
ity to be set aside on the ground of any anti-slavery
leanings. His antecedents have been already alluded
to, as indeed they were by himself, in his opinion
delivered only a year before, in the case already men-
tioned of Graves v. Slati^hier, — an opinion in which
he went far beyond any of the court in maintaining
that the Federal constitution recognizes slaves as
property as much as a bale of cotton ; and that, as
such, gangs of slaves might be driven to market
through intervening free states. He had also, on the
same occasion, attacked, with no little acrimony, the
idea set up by McLean, and seemingly countenanced
by some of the other judges, that the constitution
regards slaves not as property, but only as persons,
denouncing it as the first step in a career of doctrine
certain to proi fatal to the whole slave-holding
system.

McLean agreed with the other judges, that the act
of 1793 was constitutional, and that the states had
no right to legislate specially on the subject of the
surrender of fugitive slaves. But he differed from
them in maintaining, Ist. That Congress had aright,
in certain cases, to impose duties on state officers and
tribunals, and that this matter of the surrender of
fugitives from labor was one of those cases ; and 2d.
That the states, under their ackpiowledged police
power, bad a right to preserve their own peace, and
to protect the rights of their citizens, by prohibiting
25'

294

DB8POT1SM

the removal of fugitives from justice, except tinder a
certificate granted in conforrnity to the act of Con-
gress. This view he ingeniously supported by re-
iening to the act of 1793, v^hich required, in express
terms, that all persona arrested as fugitives from labor
should be taken before a magistrate, and a certificate
obtained in order to tneir removal ; nor, indeed,
would it have been possible for his colleagues to have
answered hira on this point, except by denonncing
that portion, at least, of the act of 1793 as unconsti-
tutional.

Three general remarks may be made upon the
opinions delivered in this case. 1st. Forgetting the
cliariness of the constitution and of the act of 1793,
as to the use of such shameful terms as slaves and
slavery^-— decorum observed even by the act of 1850,
— ^the judges, in their opinions, blurt out these obscene
words, which ought to raise a blush on the cheek of
every true man, at least of every judge, in a nation
whose government is based upon the declaration that
all men are born free, with a frequency that seems
almost affected, as if, like strumpets, desirous to show
how brazen they had grown. 2d. While the right
of the slave-holder to his fugitive slave is urged with
a vivacity which could not be e-'ceeded, had the sur-
render of fugitive slaves been the sole end and aini
of the constitution, not one word is dropped, except
cursorily, in the opinion of McLean, about the dangers
from kidnappers and false claimants, or about the
duty of protecting, against the terrible fate of slavery,
native citizens, and even fugitives from labor, claimed
by scoundrels having no title to their services. 3d. It
is not a little remarkable, that not one of the judges
made the slightest allusion to the child born in Penn-
sylvania, and free according to the decision of the
Supreme Court of that state, but carried off into
slavery along with its mother. The state law might
be inefficacious in the case of a person admitted to
be a slave, but was it also void in its application to a
nativB-borji citizen of the state, seized and carried off

Iti AM£BICA.

into slavery without any title or legal warrant ? Per-
haps on the principle de minimis non curat lex,'—tbe
law does not concern itself with trifles,—- the kidnapping
a negro child was thought to be too insignificant a
matter to engage the attention of so grave a tribunal
Or are we to understand the court as reversing, by silent
implication, the doctrne of the Supreme Court of
Pennsylvania, and holding that the children of fugi-
tive slaves, whenever and at whatever period born, are
also siaves?

There is still one other extremely important obser-
vation to be made upon this case. The point brought
directly tx) the notice of the court was, the validity
of a special law of Pennsylvania, in relation to fugi-
tives from labor coming within her limits from otfier
states. This special legislation the court held to be
void, and, it would seem, soundly enough, whatever
we may think of some of the grounds and reasons on
which they based their decision. But, except by the
sweeping, yet very nebulous and unsubstantial tails
of some extravagant generalities the practical appli-
cation of which the court itself, it may reasonably
be supposed, would be inclined to contract within
some defensible limits, the case of Prigg v. Pemspl-
vania does not touch, it does not even evince the
least consciousness of the vastly more important
questions upon which, according to the views main-
tained in this section, all rights and duties, existing
under the constitution of the United States, in the
case of fugitives from labor, must depend ; the ques-
tions, namely, Ist, of the right of the states to regu-
late, by general laws, the procedure to be adopted, in
all cases, for reclaiming, within their limits, actual
control over the persons of others by parties who
poss 'ft - the legal right of control ; and 2d, of the neces-
sity that citizens of other states should be satisfied
with being placed, in this respect, on a level with
resident and native citizens. These are points as yet
unadjudged by the Supreme Court of the United
States, or by any state courrt, except that of Penn-

296

DESPOTISM

sylvania, ia ihe unfortunate case of Wright v. Deacon^
already sufficientiy criticized.

The decision of the case of Pngg v. Pennsylvania
failed to give satisfaction any where. Every where it
was greeted with mingled groans and hisses ; in the
North, as a timid and disgraceful surrender of the
rights of the free states, and of the plainest principles
of common justice ; in the South as not having gone
half far enough. The free states very generally re-
sponded to it, not by repealing the statutes which this
decision declared void, but by nevr laws, forbidding
their officers or magistrates to act under the statute
of 1793. or their jails to be employed for the detention
of fugitives. Mr. Webster, in his Newburyport let-
ter, stigmatizes this latter prohibition, as putting a
serious obstacle in the way of trial by jury, in the
case of alleged fugitives from labor. Lame apology
for bis abandonmr of his own bill, since the mar-
shals of the TJnit( tates are amply authorized, by
a joint resolution oj. ooth houses of Congress, to pro-
vide, in all cases where the states refuse the use of
their jails to the Federal authorities, other safe places
for the custody of their prisoners, under which provis-
ion, have we not seen the very court house of the
taty of Boston converted into a slave jail, and by the
oraer of the city authorities, surrounded by chains,
under which even the state judges were obliged to
stoop, some of them, indeed, seeming even to make a
merit of their alacrity in doing 00 ? Nor is it, true, as
Mr. Webster seems to insinuate, that this refusal of
the use of state jails was one of the devices of the
treasonable abolltionistg- So far from it, it was first
brought into use by that good Federalist, Grovernor
Strong, so highly eulogized by Mr. Webster in this
very same Newburyport letter, in conjunction with
the legislature of the Federal and patriotic state of
Massachusetts, and with the full approbation, if we
mistake not, of Mr. Webster himself. The occasion
was the attempt of President Madison, of which
the Federalists did not approve, to compel the British

m AMKRICA.

297

goverament, by retaliations, to relinquish their scheme
of treating as deserters the natives of Ireland cap-
tured in the American ranks, by shating up in the state
jails certain British officers, prisoners of war, with
the prospect of death before them, should Great
Britain set the example. Afterwards, in the war,
almost, which sprung up in the Western States, about
the years i82(X-l, against the second Bank of the
United States, a like expedient was resorted to by the
state of Ohio, by refusing the use of its jails for the
confinement of prisoners, in all cases in which that
bank was concerned; and it was upon that occasion
that the joint resolution above referred to was adopted.
Upon the present occasion, also, Congress attempted
to meet the legislation of the states by an act, passed
in 1845, extending the jurisdiction of the Circuit CJourt
commissioners, as well to the cases of fugitives from
labor, as to the closely related one of deserting sea-
men. But for all this, fugitives from servitude rapidly
increased, and reclamations of them were attended
with more and more difficulty. Every where in th«
free states they received aid and comfort, at least to
the extent of a cup of cold water, a crust of bread,
and a barn to sleep in. Many of them turned lec-
turers, and, travelling from village to village, revealied
the secrets of the prison-house in artless and homely
appeals to the natural sympathies of the human heart,
which washed away, in trickling tears, ail the studied
and specious sophiairies of the most learned and elo*
quent advocates of despotism. The South became
more exasperated than ever. Those who had lived
and grown famous by defending and expounding the
constitution, hoping, at least, to levy new contribn-
tions, if not to mount to high oflSce in the midst of the
paniCj raised anew the cry of " The Union in danger; "
and never did the old English Tory cry of " The
church in danger " drive both clergymen and laymen
into greater follies. Such were the circumstances
under which, by the aid of half a dozen or more con-
gressional northern candidates for the presidency, the

DESPOTISM

act of 1850 was passed; an act which adopts, iii express
terms, all the judicial extravagances, based on the
constitutional clause respecting Tugitives from labor
and the act of 1793, adding, besides, others of its own ;
an act breathing, in every line, that disregard of all
right, except the right of the strongest, upon which
the system of slavery is- founded, and moat character*
istically forced through the House of Representatives,
without the allowance of any debate upon it. Omit-
ting the numerous otbeir objections which have made
that despotic enactment of a professedly democratic
iegislatme a finger-post for the scorn of all the world,
it has h&in enough for the present purpose to point
out the particulars in which it directly conflicts with
the constitutioa of the United States, The opinions
of some Federal judges, confidently pronounced, and
even ostentatiously volunteered, may affect to make
Hght of these objections. They may even be slurred
over and evaded by some state courts from whom
better things might have been expected. But they
have not been answered, nor obviated ; and, like the
drops of blood on the hands of the muitlerer, however
muffled and hidden, for the present, under the judicial
ermine, they still bear that silent but indestructible
testimony which will one day bring the guilfy to
due punishment

There is no more admirable chapter in Gibbon than
that in which he has given a condensed but compre-
hensive sketch of the Roman jurisprudence, — a chap-
ter which goes far to show, ^at an historian, accus-
tomed to generalize, and to vie ^ things in the whole
as well as by piecemeal, may he ve dearer apprehen-
sions of a system of laws than were unitedly pos-
sessed by scores and hundreds of lal prions and erudite
jurists, who had made those same la ^ the sole study
of their lives, but who had still no con eption of them,
except in detail.

After a. humorous description of some >f the formali-
ties, the knowledge of which was confine d to the early

!N AMBRICA.

S99

Roman lawysrs, and which continued to be observed
long after thjir origin and meaning were forgotten,
and even after the lawyers themselves had learned
to laugh at them, Gibbon proceeds as follows
" A more liberal art was cultivated, however, by the
sages of Rome, who, in a stricter sense, may be con-
sidered as the authors of the civil law. The alteration
of the idiom and manners of the Romans rendered
the style of the Twelve Tables less familiar to each
rising generation, and the doubtful passages were
imperfectly explained by the study of legal anti-
quarians. To define the ambiguities, to circumscribe
the latitude, to apply the principles, to extend the
consequences, to reconcile the real or apparent con-
tradictions, was a much nobler and more important
t-ask, and the province of legislation was silently
invaded by the expounders of ancient statutes. Their
subtle interpretations concurred with the equity of the

grsetor to leform the tyranny of the darker ages :
owever strange or intricate the means, it was the
aim of artificial jurisprudence to restore the simple
dictates of nature and reason, and the skill of private
citizens was usefully employed to undermine the pub-
lic institutions of their country,"

The precise and simple truth can seldom be ex-
pressed in epigrams. The last clause of this in-
structive quotation is liable to a criticism which Gib-
bon's sparkling phraseology somewhat too frequently
extorts, — -that of sacrificing to rhetorical point To
remove the rotten materials which ignorance, thought-
lessness, or the prevailing interest of the moment had
incorporated, substituting for them " the simple dic-
tates of nature and reason," can hardly, with any
justice, be said to be an undermining of the instittt-
tions of one's country, since institutions thus piously
repaired, may stand forever, instead of being left, by
the failure of rotten supports, to fall by their own
weight But whatever may be thought of the justice
of this criticism, the leading American lawyers and
courts of this present generation seem determined

300

DESPOTISM

that no future Gibbon shall bring any similar charge
Bgainst them. Assuming and conscientiously believ-
ing, as no doubt all of them who have cooaciencea
do,— -though conscience is not commonly regarded
as indispensable to a "consummate lawyer," — that
slavery is one of " the public institutions of their
country," guaranteed and endorsed by the Federal
constitution, so far from imitating the example of the
Bom an lawyers, all i'neii ckill and subtlety is era-
plbyed, not in reforming the tyranny of darker ages,
but in twisting new whips and forging new fetters, to
perpetuate that tyranny to the latest times, and to
diffuse it over the whole face of the country. What
I have written on the subject of the legal basis of
slavery, I have not written with the least expectation
of producing any effect upon lawyers or judges already
committed tc diuerent views ; or; indeeci, upon any
lawyer more than forty years of age. Harvey did
not convert a single physician above that age to his
view of the circulation of the blood ; and as to new
views, whether true or false, lawyers and doctors, for
obvious reasons, are very much alike.

At the present day, however, especially in America,
the current of public opinion sets strongly in favor
of personal freedom ; and to attempt, whether by
legislative or juridical devices, to dam up and stop
short any current of public opinion, is a very hazardous
thing. The experiment may seem to succeed for a
moment It may answer sufficiently well where only
a temporary object is to be accomplished. The rush-
ing waters of refreshment and fertility may b& stayed.
The black and sharp rocks may be laid bare, and
industrious political lishermsn may take much fish in
the pools. But presently, when least expected, and
without a moment's warning, the obstruction gives
way before the still and silently rising water, which
sweeps off dam, fishermen, every thing in the way to
inevitable destruction; a destruction which over-
whelms, felso, many innocent dwellers on the river's
bank, who, though they foresaw and remonstrated,

m AMERICA.

301

h«d not been able to prevent the disaster. Sisch
indeed is the catastrophe, as inevitable m it is for-
E'lidable, with which we are threatened at the present
moment. The dam has been building this twenty
ye ?8 or more. The accumulating waters must and
will come down. To discover the means so to gaide
them that the evil of slavery may be swept away with-
out leaving others behind it hardly less deplorable, is a
problem to which all men of sense and judgment, whe-
ther slave-holders or non-slave-holders, ought forthwith
to apply themselves. It is a question that interests aU
alike — for, much as we may quarrel among ourselves,
and loudly as, like Adam and Eve over the tasted
apple, we may accuse and berate each other, we are all
in this matter, equally concerned, equally unfortunate,
equally guilty. If the South has been the boisterous
youth who solicited, and even demanded, what the
blindness of passion made him think almost his right,
the North has been the weak, willing, profligate
maiden, who yielded— for money — what she knew to
be wrong. We are all, slave-holders and abolitionists,
citizens of the same community ; no? is it possible
for us to denationalize ourselves. Our state lines are
fast sinking into little more than county lines ; even
the old state rights Democratic party has adopted the
cry of— The Republic one and indivisible ! We are
all in the same ship, and must sink or swim together.
We are slave-holders or abolitionists, not because we
differ much either in moral character or intellectual
capacity, either in sentiment or opinion, but mainly
from differences of social and topographical position.
So completely alike, in all fundamental points, are
some of our most ardent abolitionists and some of
the boldest of our southern defenders of slavery, that
if they could, in a night, be made to change places,
the one finding himself in possession of a cotton
plantation and a hundred slaves, and the other the
editor of a northern abolitionist newspaper, with a
tolerable prospect of going to Congress on that in-
terest,— and supposing, also, the memory of past com-
2S

302^

mitmente to be at the same time obliterated,-— thex-e
is nothing whatever in their moral or intellectual con-
stitation which would prevent them from exactly and
most conscientiously filling up each other's present
places. To the common eye, the moon appears, ac-
cording to the relative position of the object and the
observer, a disc of light, or an absolute non-existence.
It is only to the philosopher that the new moon and the
full moon are the same thing. But in the present
age, we are all growing to be philosophers, and differ-
ence of position cannot long stand out against coin-
cidence of intellect and sentiment. The abolition of
slavery is the great work of the generation now in
being. What thoughtful man doubts it? Mr. Calhoun
certainly did not. Our Revolutionary Fathers did
what they could. Peace to their ashes and honor to
their memory, spite of the diatribes of those content
with nothing short of every thing! The abolition
of slavery in the Northern States, wretchedly and
ineflSciently as that matter was managed ; its exclu-
sion from the great North West ; and the abolition
of the African slave-trade, were things great in them-
selves, and in their consequences mighty. Who can
doubt that} if slavery had not been abolished in Mas-
sachusetts, some wealthy Boston supporters of the
law of 1850 would be, at this moment, exhibiting
their attachment to the Union by filling their houses,
perhaps their cotton factories, with slaves purchased
in the South ? Who can doubt that, if the African
slave-trade had not been abolished as seasonably as it
was, negroes, freshly imported from Africa, would be
now selling in the New Orleans market for a hundred
dollars a head ? And what hope woulO there be for
liberty, were the fertile states of the North West now
cultivated, as, but for the ordinance of 1787, they
would have been, by servile hands, not servile by con-
sent, but servile by compulsion ?

The abolition of slavery was desired, for their own
states, by all the snore intelligent citizens of Mary-
land and Virginia, even more ardently than any where

IN AMERICA. 303

at the North ; but they had neither the courage nor
the means to overcome the mountains of ignorance,
prejudice, and interest which rose up before them.
They were obliged to content themselves with repeat-
ing, after Lord Bacon, " Time is the greatest innova-
tor," and w^ith hoping from their children what they
could not accomplish themselves. But the result has
only served to confirm the philosophy of Lord Bacon,
whose mention of Time as the great innovator is so
generally quoted in a sense totally diiferent from that in
which he uttered it. " Surely," he says, " every new
medicine is an innovation ; and he that refuses new
remedies must expect new evils ; for Time is the great-
est innovator; and if Time alter all things to the
worse, and wisdom and councU alter them not to the
better, what shall be the end ? "

A pregnant question truly. What shall be the end ?
— a question the answer to which must make a part
of An Inquiry into the Feasibility, Expediency, and
Necessity of the Abolition of Slavery in the United
States of America, with Outlines of a Practical Plan
for its Accumplishmcnt — a second treatise to which
the present one is intended as an introduction.

APPENDIX.

Ijf confirmation of the statement contained in the text, I give
here some extracts from Mr. Webster's too famous 7th of March
speech, (1850.) It has been attempted to {glorify this speech by
giving to it the title " For the Constitution and the Union." Leea
grandiloijaently, perhaps, but quite aa truthfully, it might bavo
been entitled "A job for the presidential chair." As if to magnify
the sacrifice he was about to make to the slave-holding Moloch,
the orator prefaces his declaration of adhesion to the fugitive bill
of 1850, " with all its provisions to the fullest extent," by some
historical statements, such as might rather have justified an indig-
nant opposition to that disgraceful piece of slave-holding legisla-
tion, and which even gives color to the conjecture that a large part
of that famous speech was prepared before Mr. Webster had quite
made up his mind to barter away his voice, and vote, and perma-
nent reputation for the chance of southern votes in the presidential
caucus.

" Let us consider for a moment," says Mr. Webster, " what was
the state of sentiment north and south in regard to slavery at the
time when this constitution was adopted. A remarkable change
has taken place since ; but what did the wise and great men of
all parts of the country think of slavery then? In what estimation
did thev hold it at the Un.e when this constitution was adopted ?
It will be found, sir, if we carry ourselves by historical research
back to that day, and ascertain men's opinions by authentic rec-
ords still existing among us, that taere vas then no diversity of
opinion between the North and the Soutii on the subject of sla-
very. [This is rather overstating the matter. There was at the
time of the convention, and in the convention, a zealous pro-slavery
party, but it consisted exclusively of citizens of Georgia and
the Carolinas,] It will be found that both parts of the country
held it equally an evil, a moral and political evil. It will not De
found that either at the North or the South there was much,
though there was some, invective against slavery as inhuman and
cruel. The great ground of objection to it was political ; that it
weakened the social fabric ; that, taking the place of free labor,
society became less strong, and labor less productive ; and there-
fore we find, from all the enainent men of the time, the cleare»t

APPENDIX.

305

expi-ession of their opinion that slavery is an evil. . . . The
eminent men, the most eminent men, and nearly all the conspic-
uous politicians of the South, heH the same sentiments ; that
slavery was an evil, a blight, a scourge, and a curse. There were
no terras of reprobation of slavery so vehement, in the I^cuh at
that day, as in the South. The North was not so much excited
againsi. it as the South, and the reason is, I suppose, that there
was much less of it at the North, and the people did not see, or
think they saw, the evils so prominently as they were seen, or
tliought to be seen, at the Soutli.

" Then, sir, when this cor-^titution was framed, this was the light
in which the Federal convention viewed it, [i. e. slavery]. That
body reflected the judgment and sentiments of the great men of the
South. The question then was, how to deal with it, and hew to deal
with it as an evil. They came to thb general result They thought
that slavery could not be continued in the country, if the importation
of slaves were mafle to cease ; and, therefore, they provided that, after
a certain period, the importation might be prevented by the act of the
new government. ... It may not be improper here to allude to
that, I had almost said, celebrated opinion of Mr. Madison. Yoa ob-
serve, sir, that the term slave, or slavery, is not used in the constitution.
The constitution does not require that 'fugitive slaves' shall be de-
livered up. It requires that persons held to service in one state,
and escaping into another, shall be delivered up. Mr. Madison
opposed the introduction of the term slave, or slavery, into the con-
stitution ; for he said that he did not wish to see it recognized by
the constitution of the United States of America, that th:;re could
be property in men.

"Now, sir, all this took place in the convention of J 787; but,
connected with this, concurrent and contemporaneous, is another
important transaction, not sufficiently attended to. The convention
for framing this constitution assembled in Philadelphia in May,
and sat until September, 1787. During all that time, the Congress
of the United States waa in session in New York. ... At
the very time when the convention in Philadelphia was framing
this constitution, the Congress in New York was framing the ordi-
nance of 1787 for the organization and government of the territory
north-west of the Ohio. They passed that ordinance on the 13tK
of July, 1787, at New York, the very month, perhaps the very day,
on which these questions about the importation of slaves and the
character of slavery were debated in the convention at Philadelphia.
So far as we can now learn, there was a perfect concurrence of
opinion between these two bodies ; and it resulted in this ordinance
of 1787, excluding slavery from all the territory over which the
Congress of the United States had jurisdiction. . . . Three
things are quite clear, as historical truths. One is, that there was
an expectation, that on the ceasing of the importation of slaves from
Africa, slavery would begin to run out here. That was hoped and
expected. Another ie, that, as far as there was any power in

S06

APPENDIX.

Congress to prevent the spread of slavery in the United States,
that power was executed in tlie most absolute manner, and to tba
fullest extent. . . . Why, there it stands ! The vote of every
state in the Union was urmniiflous in favor of the ordinance, with
tUs exception of a single individual vote, and that individual vote
was given hy a northern man. This ordinance, prohibiting slavery
forever north-west of the Ohio, has the hand and seal of every
southern member in Congresa. It was, therefore, no afrgression
of the North on the South. The other and third clear historical
truth io, that the convention meant to leave slavery in the states aa
they found it, entirely under the authority and control of the states
themselves."

Yet, after all this historical detail, including the emphatic state-
ment of the care taken, under the auspices of Mr. Ma^iaon, not to
admit into the constitution the idea that there could be property in
men, Mr. Webster has the inconsistency to epeak, in the very next
paragraph, of the establishment of the constituiion of the United
States " with a recognition of slavery aa it existed in the states,"
apparently intending to concede that the Federal constitution ex-
pressly recognized slavery as an existing legal institution of the
states ; whereas the utmost that can be found in it is an obscure
recognition, and that only by implication, of the existence in the
states of a class of persons neither free nor bound to service for a
term of years, and that a recognition of the fact merely, without
the slightest acknowledgment of any legality in it But this mis-
representation of the constitution was essential to afford Mr. Web-
ster a colorable pretance for fishing after southern votes, with his
favorite bait of devotion to the constitution and the Union — a very
raelancholy piece of fishery, as it proved on this particnla^ occasion,
— not even resulting in a glorious nibble. The canning and vora-
cious southern pike proved, indeed, altogether too nimble and adroit
for a fisherman whose chief practice had been, — and a very suc-
cessful practice too — in catching northern gudgeons with the same
sort of bait.

The paragraph above alluded to is as follows, containing, alon^
with the treacherous concession abova criticized, and some addi-
tional historical mistakes, a good deal, however, of Y.holcsome
truth. " This was the state of things, sir, and this the state of
opinion, under which Uiose very important matters tvere arranged,
and those three important things done, that ia, the establishment
of the constitution of the United States with a recognition of
slavery as it existed in the states [this is ihe admission criticized
above] ; the establishment of the ordinance for the government of
the Nortli-Westem Territory, prohibiting, to the full extent of all
territory owned by the United States, the introduction of slavery
into that territory, while leaving to the states all power over slavery
in tlieir own limits ; and creating a power in the new government
to put an end to the importation of tlaves, after a limited period.
There waa entire coincidence and concurrence of tientiment between

APPENDIX.

the North aad the South, upon all these questions, at the period of
the adoption of the constitution. [Mr. Webster here again ignores
the existence, at that time, of the pro-slavery party of South
Carolina and Georgia, which has since became predominant in the
Union.] But opinions, sir, have changed, greatly changed ; changed
North and changed South. Slavery is not regarded in the South
[it would be more correct to say in Maryland and Virginia, for
North Carolina, even then, was undetermined upon this point] now
as it was then. . . . What, then, have been the causes which
have created so new a feeling in favor of slavery in the South,
which have changed the whole nomenclature of the South on that
subject, so that, from being thought of and described in the terms
I have mentioned, and will not repeat, it has now become an institu-
tion, a cherished iiistitution, in that quarter ; no evil, no scourge,
but a great religious, social, and moral blessing, as I think I have
heard it lately spoken of? I suppose tliis, sir, is owing to the rapid
growth and sudden extension of the cotton plantations of the
South. . . . The age of cotton became the golden age of our
southern brethren. It gratified their desire for improvement and
accumulation, at the same time that it excited it. The desire grew
by what it fed upon, and there soon came to be an eagerness for
new territory, a new area, or new areas, for the cultivation of the
cotton crop; and measures leading to this result werg-brought
about rapidly, one after another, under the lead of southern men at
the head of the government, they having a majority in both branches
of Congress to accomplish their ends. The honorable member
from South Carolina [Mr. Calhoun] observes, that there has been a
majority all along in favor of the North. If that be true, sir, the
North has acted either very liberally and kindly, or very weakly ; for
they never exercised that majority efficiently five times in the
history of the government, when a division or trial of strength
arose. Never. Whether they were out-generalled, or whether it
was owing to other causes, I shall not stop to consider; but no
man, acquainted with the history of the Union, can deny, that the
general lead in the politics of the country, for tiiree fourths of the

eriod that has elapeed since the adoption of the constitution, has

een a southern lead."

See " Speech of the 7th of March, 1850, for the Constitution
and the Union." Webster'a Works, Everett's edition, vol. v. pp.
333-339.

How lamentable that, after thus exposing the moral and political
weakness of the North, Mr. Webster should proceed to give a new,
and, if possible, still more humiliating instance of it, by voting for
Mason's unconstitutional and atrocious fugitive bill !

Oh, what a fall was there, my countrymen '
Then you and I and all of us fell down,
And bloody treason triumphed over us.